Shiny Happy People
by Morkhan
Summary: An investigation of a newly-formed cult reveals a truckload of weirdness that not even Sam and Dean can take with a straight face.  Crack!Fic, Snarky!Adam, spoilers galore.
1. Prince Gumdrop

**Title:** Shiny Happy People [1/4]  
**Author: morkhan**  
**Warnings:** Cursing, excessive snark, utter crack.  
**Characters:** Dean, Sam, Adam, OCs.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 6476  
**Summary: **An investigation of a newly-formed cult reveals a truckload of weirdness that not even Sam and Dean can take with a straight face. Crack!Fic, Snarky!Adam, spoilers galore.  
**Disclaimer**: Characters, universe, and recognizable things belong to CW and EK. The ridiculous plot is, sadly, mine.

**Author's Notes: **I was afraid this would happen. Classes have started for me once again, and my time is being rather thoroughly devoured by it. I have this odd inability to forget about unfinished things—they nag at me constantly, so Out of Ashes will definitely proceed. But I had to get this out first—my brain has a tendency to latch onto ideas and not let them go until they are properly expunged.

This takes place in a hypothetical Season 6 with Sam and Dean doing their thing, and is unrelated to any of my other stories. I'd love to see more Adam, but the simple truth of the matter is that if the writers don't forget him entirely, he is much more likely to be brought back as a one-episode wonder. That idea, and my sudden craving for PONR-style Adam!Snark combined to make… this.

It is what it is. I hope you enjoy it. All reviews are welcome.

* * *

"Mysterious disappearances in Georgia. Eight people have gone missing at or near the Okefenokee Swamp…"

"Screw that. We're not doing that 'Deliverance' crap again. Once was enough."

"Dean, this is the 5th idea you've shot down in a row. We have to hunt _something_."

"I only shoot down the ones that suck. That was the 5th idea in a row _that sucked_. What else you got?"

"Okay, _fine_. We've got… some kind of cult forming up in Wyoming. They claim they have the Messiah up there and he's handing out free healings… to the deserving, of course."

"Another LeGrange?"

"I thought the same thing, but there's no deaths corresponding to the healings. At least, none that I've been able to find... but that hardly means it's clean."

"Doesn't mean it's dirty, either. What if it's just some whack job and a bunch of actors?"

"He'd have to have hired his actors a while ago. There's a least one paraplegic who was paralyzed for twelve years before he visited this guy. He's up and walking around now and nobody can explain why. I think it's worth looking into, at least."

"Am I gonna have to let another old guy put his hands all over me?"

"Well, I guess that depends. Do you plan on flash-frying your heart again on the way there?"

"Think I'll pass."

"Maybe I should buy you some rubber gloves. You know, just in case."

"Screw you."

"Does that mean you're onboard?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

* * *

The Cult calls itself (no shit) 'The Magic Fingers' and it is about the funniest fucking thing Dean has heard since the Ass-butt Incident of 2010 (it was one of those things you laughed at after the fact). They've co-opted some kind of summer camp in the smelliest armpit of Nowhere, Wyoming, and are making ample use of the space to house the dozens and dozens of dipshits who actually buy into the enormous truckload of horse piss they're selling. There is actually some semblance of security, which shocks the Hell out of Dean, because it actually means that someone in charge has their head just far enough out of their own asshole to see the real world and react accordingly. Of course, that probably just means that there's a con-man running the joint, and if that's the case, it's not his and Sam's job to keep morons from giving their money to douchebags. If it was, he's pretty sure they'd have to dismantle the economy and most of the world's governments before they could call it a day.

Still. They've got at least three people—three people with _medical records_ and serious, forever-type injuries and illnesses which were supposedly un-fixable. Three people who are now fit as fighting fiddles and healthy enough to run with wild horses. They swear up, down, and side-to-side that this place is legit, so it's up to Sam and Dean to investigate.

Getting in is easy enough. They could get around the security if they needed to, but sometimes people forget that the easiest way to get through most doors is to knock on them. As usual, Sam is cast in the role of the sober, responsible, naïve and harmless young man, while Dean plays the part of the low-down, no-good reprobate thug. The two of them know their roles so well that they are practically a two-man _commedia_ troupe and Dean _cannot_ believe he actually knows what that is. "My brother is here to be healed," Sam says, plastering on his best 'deep, abiding sadness that touches your soul, but tempered with resolution and unfailing love that will see me through all obstacles' face.

"What's his problem?" says stereotypical fatass rent-a-cop number 2479. His moustache jiggles when he talks. It's kind of impressive, in a shudder-inducing kind of way.

Speaking of shuddering, Dean is doing his best impression of a frostbitten anorexic Jell-O mold, shaking and shivering and staring off into oblivion. Sam's artistic talent has given him all sorts of nasty-looking sores to keep his normally stunning beauty from drawing too much attention to them. Dean was kind of worried about his brother's mental health when he took a detour through the cosmetics aisle, but so far it's paying off.

"He's an addict," Sam explains, using that particular tone of voice that just makes you want to pick him up and cuddle him. You know, if you're anyone who _isn't_ Dean.

"You said you'd tell them it was a flesh-eating virus!" Dean hisses, piling on the hurt.

"If you really to fix this, don't you think you should at least be _honest_ about it? For **once**?" Sam counters, sounding like they've had this conversation a hundred times. Fuck hunting, they should get into show business.

"Go on in," says 2479, his many chins unmoved by their Oscar-worthy acting (okay, maybe not that good. But surely Emmy or Golden Globe. Maybe a Tony. What do they give those for, again?).

He is still pondering the answer to that question when a nice-looking lady in a white robe guides him to a cabin to shack up with other sickies. Dean's guessing they're new at this; the robes they bought are way too long, and all manner of twigs and leaves are stuck to the hems where they drag along the ground, and they've probably got all kinds of bugs crawling up their legs. Clearly they didn't expect to be working outdoors. Amateurs.

The two of them head into the cabin bathroom to discuss their plan (though ostensibly, because Dean needs to puke).

"If they're legit," Sam suggests, "we just need to wait for an actual healing to happen, and watch the fireworks. That's our best bet until we get more information."

"What do we do in the meantime?" Dean asks. "I mean, no offense to the huddled masses, but I don't feel like catching anything while I'm here."

His reward for his heroic display of tact is a cuff across the back of his head. "Most of these people have serious illnesses—genetic defects, cancer, organ failure. None of that stuff is contagious, Dean. The most contagious thing I think we'll run into here is an STD, so keep it in your pants, and you should be fine."

Dean thinks back to some of the people they saw on their way in, and suppresses a totally-un-PC-shudder. "No problems on that front."

* * *

They spend a few hours with the sickies of their cabin exchanging life stories. Dean's supposed to be a strung-out mess, so he spends most of his time laying still, occasionally groaning and shuddering to keep up the illusion. Sam is the one put in charge of telling their sordid tale, and he spins an epic yarn of juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, gang violence (Castiel's handprint becomes a gang tattoo for this one), and affairs with prostitutes (Dean _does not_ pay for sex—he always takes care to ensure the experience itself is payment enough, thankyouverymuch). He can tell Sam is enjoying himself as he becomes a living fountain of bullshit, and he's fine with it… until Sam goes and makes himself the _older_ brother, and everyone believes him because he is a sasquatch.

"But he looks so _old_," notes a skinny little girl with black hair. She says it pretty loudly, which, hey, even if he _is_ a drug addict, he's still _in the damn room_.

"Meth does that to you," Sam nods sadly, and Dean makes a mental note to slug him for this later. He does **not** look old.

"Shelby Alcott?" a voice calls from the door.

The sheepish little twig of a girl who called him old raises her hand. "Here," she answers like it's a roll call. For all Dean knows, she's still in elementary school—she's tiny, but her skin looks sallow and stretched out, like she's shrinking underneath it and it's about to slip off.

"You have been chosen," the voice says again. "Come with us." Three cultists in slightly dirtier outfits appear near the doorway holding torches. Their white robes and oversized, vaguely pointy hoods make them look like members of the freaking Klan, and Dean would be pissed if it wasn't so obviously a result of simple stupidity.

Shelby grins and rises unsteadily to her feet. One of the cultists sees how painfully she's moving and quickly steps forward to help her walk—alright, Dean will give them a _few_ points for that one. They have been doing their best to make everyone here as comfortable as possible—which isn't terribly comfortable, considering the location, but sometimes you gotta take what you can get. An older woman starts to go after her, but another cultist stops her. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but she must take this journey alone. Please, wait here." Against every instinct Dean is sure he would have in the same situation, the woman simply sighs and nods, sitting back down to do some more hand-wringing.

Dean and Sam wait a few seconds after the cultists leave before Dean pretends to have a nervous breakdown and storms out of the room, Sam being sure to placate everyone inside before following after him.

"Where'd they go?" Sam asks when he catches up with Dean.

The torches make it easy to follow them: Dean just nods towards the orange glow, which is making steady progress up a small path towards a larger cabin on top of a hill. Probably the mess hall, or a visitor's center. "I don't see anybody around. These people don't seem too paranoid. Or, you know, too bright. Shouldn't be too hard to sneak up on them."

Sam nods, and the two of them carefully tail the small procession of cultists. Sure enough, they head for the big cabin, but not the main entrance. Instead, they go around the back and enter through the basement. Rituals carried out in a basement… always a good sign.

After a quick search of the surrounding area, two cultists find themselves taking an impromptu closet nap, and Sam and Dean inherit their robes (with Sam having to walk bended kneed and hunched over to fit underneath the damn thing). The ritual is apparently a hoods-up affair, which is a pretty lucky break. By Dean's count, the cult doesn't have that many actual members, which probably means they're all on first-name basis with each other and not likely to get new converts that they don't recognize. Quietly, Dean and Sam slip into the basement just as the ritual begins.

"Shelby Alcott," a cultist in a pink (_?_) robe begins. Definitely a girl under the hood. "Diagnosed at age 15 with an inoperable brain tumor." _Shit_. A sudden bout of vertigo nearly knocks him over—only Sam subtly shifting over to steady him keeps him from falling. He hasn't thought about Layla in years, and of course, the guilt comes rushing back, fresh as the day it was made. He wonders how long she lived after he last saw her. What her funeral was like. What happened to her mother… "The doctors have given you three more months to live, correct?" Pink Robe Girl brings him back to the present.

Shelby, who looks more than a little frightened at being taken into a creepy basement with a bunch of weirdoes in costume, just nods shakily.

"Well, that sucks," Pink Robe Girl _like, totally_ says. "The Magic Fingers are not down with that at all. Let the healing begin!" She starts chanting, and suddenly, the circle of cultists begins moving in and out, in and out, in perfect unison like some kind of demented version of the hokey pokey.

"What the Hell is she saying?" Dean whispers.

"No idea," Sam replies. "It's no language I've ever heard. It sounds like a bunch of random syllables from real words, just kind of tossed around and mixed up. Word salad, basically."

The two of them start moving in and out in time with the chanting, feeling like idiots the entire time, but still not willing to blow their cover before they figure out what the Hell is going on here. They do the hokey pokey and they turn themselves around, and Dean is _this_ close to telling these morons what it's _really_ all about when suddenly, someone barges through the circle from outside. He's not wearing a robe like the rest of the cultists; instead, he's in an all-white outfit with a hoodie, ski-mask, jeans and sneakers- Dean is forcibly reminded of Lucifer's fashion sense, and rather irrationally wonders if the Devil isn't somehow behind this. Ski Mask has got some kind of Michael Jackson thing going on, wearing only one glove, on his left hand. With his right, he reaches over and pokes Shelby in the cheek, causing her to gasp and fall to the floor (just like LeGrange, not a good sign). With no one to impress with their spectacular weirdness, the ritual grinds to an awkward halt as Ski Mask goes up to Pink Robe Girl and whispers something that sounds _pissed_ and… somehow vaguely familiar.

Shelby rises from the floor as Ski Mask barges out of the circle as rudely as he barged in. "I feel… _amazing_…" she says, clearly in awe, and Dean looks over to Sam. Whatever is going down here, it seems that this guy is at the epicenter. They have their man. While the rest of the Fingers gather around to tend to Shelby, Sam and Dean slip silently away, following Ski Mask through a side door and into a hallway. After checking to be sure no one else followed them, they make their move.

Ski Mask turns around as they approach him. "_What_?" he asks. "What is it now? I already told you, I don't—"

His words are cut off as Sam and Dean rush him in unison, pinning him to the wall. "Alright, buddy," Dean says, pressing his elbow into the guy's neck. "You've got about ten seconds to explain to me what happened in there, and I better like what I hear."

The guy suddenly grows very still. "…no way. No. Freaking. Way," he groans, and all of a sudden, his voice goes from vaguely to very, very, _very_ familiar.

Sam is apparently on the same wavelength, and his startled hands lash up and snatch the mask off with enough force to give most people whiplash. Under the mask lies the cherubic face of their very own long lost baby brother, who looks positively _thrilled_ to see them.

"Crap." Adam monotones, and Dean can't see any reason to disagree with him.

* * *

The brothers head into a small side room with uncomfortable plastic chairs to have a little pow-wow. Adam still looks _way_ less-than-thrilled, and Dean feels the urge to keep a careful eye on him so the kid doesn't try to slip away when they're distracted. He has to fight the urge to retreat himself—there's enough _awkward_ in the room to give a guy laryngitis from all the throat-clearing.

"So," Sam says after an extended silence, always ready with the olive branch. "Adam. It's been… a long time, man."

"Not long enough," Adam says with a sarcastic smile. Hell has done nothing for his attitude problems.

"Adam, listen…" Dean starts, but Adam cuts him off immediately.

"I swear to God, if you start apologizing, I'm gone. I'll jump out a fuckin' window if I have to," he says. He even looks around for a window to leap through, seeming a little disappointed when he realizes that they're still in a basement.

"Okay," Dean says, backing off for the moment. The kid is pissed, that much is certain, but Dean can hardly hold that against him. Adam's got some pretty damn good reasons to be ticked off. "That's fine. You don't want to talk about it. When I got back, I didn't either."

Adam looks at him strangely, and noxious fumes of awkward threaten to ignite into something else.

"Look," Sam says. "Why don't you just… tell us what happened to you? Start from the beginning."

Adam quirks an eyebrow at the middle Winchester. "Alright. The beginning, let's see…"

* * *

_Once upon a time, there was a dashing, handsome young pre-med student by the name of Adam Milligan. His bright, smiling face, can-do attitude and aw-shucks mannerisms ensured that he was beloved by friends and classmates alike. The world was at his fingertips, and everyone just __**knew**__ that he was destined to live a long, productive life._

_One day, shortly before heading home for a short visit with his overworked-but-loving mother, Adam found himself watching a Zombie Movie marathon with his roommate, Todd._

"_Gee willikers!" Adam said. "Look at that guy getting his guts ripped out! That sure does look painful."_

"_Way," Todd nodded. "That'd be an ass way to die."_

"_Seriously!" Adam continued, "I hope nothing like that happens to me! Gosh, I reckon that's just about the _worst _way to die I can think of."_

_Todd said that he could think of something even more horrible, but Adam didn't really remember what he said. Mostly because a week later, as his mom and some cop made a fresh meal out of his nice, gooey intestines, he comforted himself in-between screams of agony with the knowledge that he was totally, totally right and that Todd could __**suck it**__._

_Then he choked on a piece of his own kidney and __**died**__._

**THE END**

* * *

The awkward has multiplied by a hundred. Dean is going to suffocate in this fucking room. Can somebody open a goddamn window or something?

Oh, right, basement. Shit.

"Okay, that's not really what I meant by 'the beginning,'" Sam grimaces.

Adam shrugs. "Oh, okay. In that case…"

* * *

**NOT THE END**

_Once upon a time, Adam Milligan was totally dead and in Heaven. It was a sweet setup. He got to make out with hot girls 24-7 and live in an iPod pre-loaded with his life's greatest hits on shuffle and infinite replay._

_Then some MIB-looking angels popped up and were all "ADAM MILLIGAN, YOU MUST SAVE THE WORLD."_

_And Adam was like "What I gotta do?"_

_And the angels said "YOU AND THE ARCHANGEL MUST KILL THE DEVIL."_

_And Adam was all like "Cool, let's do this shit," as he put on a pair of badass sunglasses and got ready to rumble._

_Then the angels were like "OH, AND BY THE WAY, THERE ARE THESE TWO GAY INCEST-LOVING BROTHERS NAMED SAM AND DEAN WHO MIGHT TRY TO KIDNAP YOU AND SAY THEY'RE YOUR BROTHERS, BUT THEY'RE TOTALLY FULL OF SHIT SO DON'T LISTEN TO THEM."_

_And Adam said "K," and all of a sudden it was, like, dark. Really really dark, and stinky, and dry. And _**OH YEAH.**_ He suddenly remembered Todd's most horrible way to die. _

"_It would really suck to be buried alive. You'd be all panicking and suffocating and nobody could hear you scream. You'd probably die in your casket, and even if you got out, you'd just wind up drowning in dirt. _**God**_ that would suck…"_

_And as Adam flew into ultra-terror-panic-fuck-mode and tried to claw out of his own casket, he realized that Todd was also totally, totally right_. _He mentally apologized to his old buddy for telling him to suck it, right before he passed out from lack of oxygen._

* * *

Dean is giving the Winchester Death Glare on full power. "He meant 'start from the point where—'"

Adam just intercepts it with an open palm. "Shhh. I'm getting to the best part…"

* * *

_So after Adam passed out, he woke up in some old fart's house that smelled like old fart. There were these two brothers named Sam and Dean who had totally kidnapped him. There was also some banker guy in a trenchcoat named Castiel and a crippled old fart named Bobby._

"_It's not fair!" Dean cried, desolate. "You're not supposed to save the world!" he wept, pointing an accusing finger at Adam. "Only __**I'm**__ supposed to save the world!"_

"_Dean," Sam sighed sympathetically._

"_Idjits," Bobby grunted, sipping his beer._

"_How could you betray me like this?" Castiel seethed, looking at Dean with soulful eyes dripping with hurt. "I thought we had something __**special**__."_

"_Ummm, guys…" Adam tried to say._

"_Michael was supposed to use __**me**__!" Dean pouted, stomping his foot. "My destiny that I didn't even really want has been _**stolen**_ from me! I am just so miserably wretched and full of woe!"_

"_Dean," Sam gently reproved._

"_Tarnation!" Bobby shouted, taking a swig of whiskey._

"_You held my heart in your hands," Castiel spat at Dean. "And you __**crushed**__ it. You vile, wicked man…"_

"_Guys," Adam tried again, a little louder._

"_I have no one," Dean sniffled, placing a hand on his wounded heart. "No one at all. I am so very, very alone."_

"_Dean," Sam reassured, gently patting his older brother on the back._

"_Rootin'-tootin'!" Bobby hollered, downing six shots of Vodka._

"_I hate you," Castiel sniffled, crossing his arms and turning his back on the object of his ire. "Never again shall we lie together and know one another in the Biblical sense. We are through."_

"_Fuck this noise," Adam finally said, starting to leave._

"_I don't have to take this. I'm going home," Dean snitted, storming out of the room._

"_Dean!" Sam pleaded, following after him. "_Dean_… __**Dean**__. Dean? _**DEAN**_. …"_

_Bobby said nothing because he passed the fuck out in the middle of setting up a beer helmet with two bottles of rubbing alcohol._

_Castiel was weeping bitter tears into one of Dean's old shirts when Adam finally escaped_.

* * *

There is a big fat vein in Dean's neck. It's kind of unattractive, but thankfully, it only shows up when he is well and truly _pissed_. Which probably means it's protruding far enough to stack quarters on at the moment. "You think you're funny, don't you?" he bites at Adam.

The kid just shrugs. "I don't write the jokes. I just live them."

Sam looks more than a little miffed, as well, but he is better at reigning in his anger than Dean (probably because he has more anger to practice with). "Just tell us what you're doing here," he clips. "You don't like us, fine. You don't want to talk to us, okay, whatever. We get it, okay? But you know who we are, and what we do, so you know why we're here. Something happened in that room. You did _something_ to that girl, something supernatural, and we're not leaving until we figure out what it is."

"So you can make this easier on all of us," Dean grits, "if you cut the crap and tell us the story we want to hear."

Adam doesn't back down from them in the slightest. "And what if I don't feel like talking? Huh? You gonna kidnap me? Tie me up and throw me in the trunk? Or maybe you'll just skip all of that crap and kill me. _Again_."

"We **tried** to save you!" Dean growls.

"Well, you failed," Adam seethes. There is a little hitch in his voice towards the end, something intangible changing in his expression. Suddenly, Dean is in another dingy hotel room, and he never thought he'd be so happy to see one again. Sam is with Bobby, trying to figure out how the Hell he escaped from Hell, and Dean is supposed to be asleep. But he can't sleep. Can't do much of anything except stare at his own face in the mirror and wonder if he knows who he is looking at.

He didn't, then. He knows now. "Adam, I'm **sorry**," Dean says, meaning it with every atom he's got.

The kid shakes his head and stands up violently enough to throw the chair out from underneath him. He starts for the door, but Sam intercepts him. "…get the **fuck** out of my way," Adam spits.

"No," Sam says simply, and Dean notes this as one of those instances where having a 6'5 wall of muscle for a little brother comes in handy, because Sam is _not moving_.

Dean tries his best to lay it all on the line. "I wish I could change what happened to you, kid. I do. But I can't. None of us can change _any of this_. It's **done**. It's just… done. So really, kid, I **get** it. So does Sam. And if you want, after this, we'll pop out of your life and you'll never have to see us or talk to us again, I swear to God. But we have know what's going on here. We have to be sure you're not hurting anyone."

Adam's jaw twitches, and his fists clench. He looks like he wants to give Sam a pounding that would make Lucifer's beatdown seem like he was fondly pinching Dean's cheeks by comparison. But he doesn't take a swing, doesn't do much of anything besides glare, until finally he starts telling his story again…

* * *

_Once upon a time, there was Hell, and nothing else. There was screaming, and screaming and _**screaming**_, and writhing, and crying, and weeping and choking and begging for mercy and never getting any. There was clawing and biting and cutting and carving and tearing and ripping and shit they don't even have __**words**__ for. There was being torn to pieces over and over again, being laid bare, blown apart, broken and shattered and ruined and crushed and pulverized in every way that a person can be, and it _never stopped_. It never, ever stopped, until one day, it did._

_One day, Adam Milligan found himself on the Earth, and couldn't decide whether he wanted to cry and kiss it or scream and tear it apart. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to fall on his knees and thank God, or hunt Him down and jam a fork into His Holy Nutsack. He couldn't process this shit, and his brain was so badly fucked that he pretty much did the zombie shuffle to random places for hours, maybe even days after he got back. Then, he zombie'd his way onto the highway and stepped in front of a fucking Prius and got turned into fender ketchup. The Prius swerved into a Jeep Cherokee which flipped over onto a minivan and soon there was a six car pileup with multiple serious injuries. But Adam wasn't among the injured—despite the fact that the car was probably going 70 when it hit him, full-on, and he flew head-over-heels for dozens of yards, there wasn't a fucking scratch on him. If he'd taken some time to think about it, that might have struck him as a little weird, but he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about the six-car pileup he just caused. _

_Since he knew first aid, his training kind of took over and he ran towards the scene of the accident, looking for any injured people he could help. The Prius was flipped over and the lady driving it had blood coming out of all the wrong places, but there wasn't anything he could do for her, because she was losing way too much blood way too fast and probably had a ton of internal injuries that he had no fucking clue what to do about. She was still conscious, though, and she recognized him when he walked up._

"_Oh my God," she rasped, coughing up some nasty red gunk. "Are y…you okay?"_

"_I'm fine," Adam replied, still kind of dazed. Those were the first words he'd said since getting back, and they sounded fucking weird coming out of his mouth like that._

"_Oh, thank God," she said, before hacking up some more grossness._

"_I think you're gonna die," Adam said like the big, stupid, oblivious dick that he was. "I'm sorry," he added after he realized how retarded he was being._

"_Me too," she replied, trying to smile, and _fuck_. It was Adam's fault she was dying. His fault that all of these people were hurt—if he had been paying attention to where he was going, none of this shit would've happened._

_He reached out to grab her hand, not really knowing why. Trying to be nice, trying to be comforting, who the fuck knows. All he knows is that when their hands met, suddenly, she wasn't bleeding anymore. Suddenly, she was opening her car door and stumbling out and checking her body for injuries and not finding anything. Suddenly, she was really fucking happy and with good reason._

_That day, there was a six-car pileup on I-80 near Omaha, Nebraska, involving a Prius, a minivan, a Jeep, a Dodge Charger, and two SUVs. Three of the cars had families with small children. And there wasn't a single fatality or serious injury among them. Everyone walked away._

_Fucking miracle._

* * *

"Holy shit," Sam breathes.

"What he said," Dean concurs.

Adam shrugs, looking a little less hostile for a change. "I don't even know what the fuck. I just… when I touch people, they're fixed. Just like that. Can't even turn it off—it's why I've got the Michael Jackson thing going on with my gloves," he says, holding up his hands. His right one is the only one with exposed skin, the other covered in a thin latex glove.

"So you're like a walking _Get Well Soon_ card?" Dean asks.

Adam nods. "It's weird, man. Watch this," he says. Then he cold-cocks Dean's little brother right in the jaw.

"Whoa! The **fuck** is your problem, you little shit?" Dean shouts, big brother mode activating in a frenzy of flashing lights and alarms blaring _DANGER, SAM WINCHESTER_ over loudspeakers.

His alarms are silenced by Sam, holding up one hand and rubbing his jaw in awe with the other. "Wow. That felt… _awesome_."

Adam sighs. "I know. It's like… I can't hurt people. Even if I want to. Which sucks, because sometimes, you really need to punch somebody, you know?"

Dean does. "Damn."

"And there are no drawbacks? Nobody else takes the injuries instead, nobody else has to die so that these people can live?" Sam queries.

The disgruntled, slightly disgusted look returns to Adam's face. "No. Why the Hell would I do that?"

Sam scratches the back of his head. "Long story. We've seen stuff similar to this before, but it usually has a pretty sharp drawback."

"_Deadly_ sharp," Dean adds.

"No, nothing like that," Adam sighs. "Nothing bad, but… well," he runs a hand through his hair. "There is this… one thing," he mumbles.

"Yeah?" Dean prods. "What's that?"

Adam looks pensive for a second. "Anyone outside?" he asks.

Sam sticks his head out the door. "We're clear."

His eyes dart around the room, like he half expects someone to pop out from behind a potted plant or rappel down from the ceiling. "…alright. I guess I'll just show you," he sighs. "God, I can't believe I'm doing this…"

The way he's talking about it makes Dean think it's got to be a rash or something in an embarrassing place, and Dean would really rather _not,_ you know, **anything** to do with that. "Uhhhh, kid, if this is some kind of private, personal thing, we really don't—"

"Just come on," he grunts.

* * *

Adam takes them outside. Or _almost_ outside, anyway; he stops right before they go through the door, turning back to them with a look that's about two cups annoyance, one cup fuck my life, and three tablespoons of pure embarrassment. "Don't laugh," he says.

Neither he nor Sam knows how to respond to that. Sam nods, Dean shrugs. Adam sighs, and steps through the door.

As he walks outdoors into the evening, the fading sunlight seems to concentrate around him as he goes, forming into a kind of vague glow that _almost_ looks like a halo around the kid's head, making his hair look even blonder than before. That in itself is kind of odd, but the next part… the next part, Dean could not make up if he tried.

A gaggle of adorable woodland creatures crawl out of the woodwork to gather around his feet, and suddenly Adam standing in the middle of a group of three squirrels, two chipmunks, a badger, a _beaver_, a fox, three bunny rabbits, a raccoon, and a goddamn baby deer. Birds fly down from the trees to flutter around his head and—swear to God—_butterflies_ seem to literally _spawn from the fucking aether_ to land on his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean spots a turtle slowly but surely making its way over to join the party and that is the straw that snaps the camel's spine in two.

Dean laughs. He laughs so hard he forgets to breathe. He laughs so hard that his muscles seize up and he falls over, rolling on the ground and cackling to the sky like a doped-up hyena.

"Shut **up**," Adam growls, and never in his life has he looked more impotent, so the whole thing just sends Dean even deeper into the sea of hysterics.

Sam, shockingly, has kept a straight face through the whole thing, but Dean can see something in his eyes when he looks at Adam. "You know what this means, don't you?" Sam says gravely.

Adam looks a little worried. "No, what?"

"It means that **you **are the True Prince of the Fairies," Sam finally cracks, sniggering even as he speaks. "You are the rightful ruler of the Gumdrop Kingdom, destined to find the Rainbow Wand and sing the Song of Eternal Love, bringing an age of peace and happiness to all the land."

"You guys suck," Adam spits. "Fuckin' **assholes**…" His tirade is interrupted when the fawn notices his distress and gently nuzzles against him in sympathy. Adam just glares at it. "Attack!" he says, pointing to Dean. The fawn responds by licking his hand, and **good God**. Dean is seriously going to pass out. He can't even remember what breathing is like. He is going to _die laughing_, which is just even more hilarious. Dean tries in vain to stand up, only to be knocked down by Adam's angry fist.

_Holy Hell_. "Sam was right. That **was** awesome!" Dean laughs. "Do it again."

Adam roars in frustration and stomps off, his forest friends happily scampering after, and _**SATAN'S ASS CHEEKS**_. There are flowers blooming in the spot where he was standing. _**Fucking flowers**_. Dean hears Sam starting to wheeze from laughing so hard.

"Maybe," Dean gasps between spasms. "Maybe we shouldn't laugh. He might…" He snorts. "He might do something _really_ nasty. Like give us a hug!"

"Or hit us with his Care Bear Stare," Sam wheezes.

Dean just starts to laugh louder when suddenly the universe seems a lot less funny due to a powerful blow to his back that feels _anything_ but awesome. He lands on his stomach just in time to hear Sam. "No, dude, come on…" A mighty _whump_ follows, and Sam lands on the ground as well. Dean looks up to see Adam standing over him with a feral look in his eyes and a **big** stick in his hands. Sadly, the fact that he is sparkling in the sunlight and surrounded by adorable fuzzy things still makes him look more than a little ridiculous, and Dean can't stop smiling.

"Stop laughing!" he cries. "It's not funny!"

Dean can't help himself. "Oh, come on. It's a _little_ funny…"

Oh, now he's done it. Adam is on his way over, brandishing the huge tree branch like a broadsword. "Come on, kid!" he pleads, desperately trying not to grin as he talks. "Look, we're sorry, okay?"

"Oh, you're _gonna_ be sorry," he says, raising the stick over his head. Dean braces for the most hilarious beating of his life, when suddenly…

"Ummm, sir?" a feminine voice calls out, stopping Adam in his tracks. Dean looks over to the cabin to see Pink Robe Girl and a few others. Her hood is down now, and Dean can see that she is a young woman, probably not much older than Adam himself, with short, black hair and blue eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Adam has gone wide-eyed and seems to have momentarily frozen (stick and all), so Dean takes this opportunity to stand up and put a friendly arm around the kid. "Nope, no problems here, just a little friendly roughhousing," he says, turning the charm smile up to eleven.

Pink Robe Girl quirks an eyebrow. "O…kay? I'm not sure why you feel compelled to roughhouse with our Messiah," she says, _do not laugh, Dean, __**do not laugh**_. "I don't think I've seen you around here before. Who are you?"

"I'm Dean," he says, before gesturing over to his taller brother who is currently scraping pine needles off of his shirt. "That's Sam. We're—"

"My two gay uncles," Adam suddenly jumps in, his brain having restarted and going straight back into vindictive mode. _Oh, no you did not, you scrawny little shit…_

"Oh," Pink Robe Girl says. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were having visitors."

"Sorry," Adam shrugs, smiling innocently. "Must have slipped my mind."

"Well," she replies, turning to Dean. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Stephanie, the Grand Popetress of the Magic Fingers," she says with a smile, offering her hand. _Popetress_?

"Nice to meet you," Dean says. "But we were just going, weren't we Sam?"

Sam rubs his hip where the stick made impact. "Yeah. Gotta hit the road. _Hard_," he grunts.

"**No!**" Adam suddenly shouts. "I mean, uhhh… no, you guys don't have to go."

Huh. That's a pretty sudden attitude shift. "Well, we wouldn't want to _impose_…" Dean says, but Stephanie has already moved forward to grab him by the hand, leading him back towards the cabin. Two of the others go for Sam, who is looking at Dean with his 'what the Hell' eyes.

"Oh, you're not imposing on us at all! Any family of Our Lord is welcome here, regardless of lifestyle choices. The Magic Fingers are totally open and affirming!" she grins. "You can stay in the main cabin with us! Do you have any luggage?"

"Uhhh," Dean stammers. "No, not really, we weren't actually planning on staying, you see…" He looks back at Adam to try and figure out what the kid is going for.

The kid, for his part, makes it abundantly clear. _GET ME OUT OF HERE_, he mouths. _THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY_.

Dean's eyebrows shoot up in shock, but he is pulled away from further communication by the surprisingly strong Stephanie continuing to lead him into the cabin. "Well, anything you need, you let us know, okay?" she smiles, and Dean nods.

As he is lead inside, he looks back over to where Adam was standing, only to find him gone, his animal friends standing around looking rather forlorn without him (the turtle looking especially sad, having only just gotten there to find that the party ended without him).

Suddenly, this case is a _lot_ more interesting…

_To Be Continued..._


	2. Sunshine in a Bag

**Title:** Shiny Happy People [2/4]  
**Author: morkhan**  
**Warnings:** Cursing, more snark, animal cruelty (but not really), brotherly torment.  
**Characters:** Dean, Sam, Adam, OCs... and an old friend. ;)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 4588  
**Summary: **Adam tells the origin story of His Devoted Fanclub, and Sam and Dean try to smuggle some human contraband.  
**Disclaimer**: Characters, universe, and recognizable things belong to CW and EK. The ridiculous plot is, sadly, mine.

**Author's Notes: **It GROOOOWS. Well, not really. I just realized that the next part of this story involves a shift that makes it a good place to put a chapter marker, so we end this chapter on a cliffhanger. What will become of our intrepid heroes? What _usually_ becomes of them? XP Reviews are welcomed and hoarded and loved. _Precioussssssss_.

* * *

They wind up staying in a small room on the second (third? Does the basement count?) floor. Stephanie is entirely too chipper to be human and beams at them ceaselessly the entire way there. By the time she has finished talking their ears off (without actually _saying _anything_)_, they have reached their rooms and the sun has finished setting.

"I'll be right back with some amenities for you," she says. "Just give a shout if you need anything, m'kay?" Without waiting for an answer, she is gone, and Sam and Dean are left to try and process the galactic pile of whatthefuckery that just landed in their laps.

"You think it's some kind of leftover archangel mojo?" Dean asks.

Sam shrugs. "I can't think of anything else it _could_ be. He wasn't exactly an immortal, insta-healing animal magnet before he went to Hell."

Dean chews on this for a few seconds. "So why don't you have any leftover Devil powers?"

Sam shrugs. "Who says I don't?"

Dean goes bug-eyed. "_Sam!_ You mean to tell me—"

"Joking, Dean. I was joking," he says with a gentle grin. "No Devil powers. At least, none that I didn't already have."

"That's not funny, Sam," Dean replies. "Those powers are bad news. Think about what might've happened if you'd been stuck with Satan juice or whatever and had no control like Adam… you'd be followed everywhere by death and destruction, every living thing hating your guts…"

Sam gives him a frank stare. "You do realize you just summed up my entire life story in a sentence, don't you?"

Huh. Dean has something else to chew on now. His teeth are starting to hurt. "Man… life's not fair. You're a sweet, polite, harmless young man, and chaos goes wherever you go. Adam is a foul-mouthed, angry, miserable little bastard and he gets Disney Princess powers and fuckin' flowers blooming at his feet."

Sam grins at Dean. "Awwww, you think I'm sweet."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Shut up. Needy bitch…"

"Make me, you jerk… with a heart of _purest gold_." A pillow is launched at Sam's head for that comment. Dean still owes him the slug from earlier. Maybe it's time to collect… nah, maybe not.

"So, what do we do now?" Dean wonders aloud.

Sam shrugs. "Seems to me like everything happening here really is harmless. Unless he _really_ wants to get rid of those powers, I don't see any reason why we can't leave well enough alone."

"No," Dean says. "He tried to say something to me before we got dragged up here. Something like…"

"_Let me in!_" Dean jumps like a fire ant bit him in the crotch, and is only slightly comforted to see that Sam is now also on his feet and looking around like a panicked meerkat expecting a lion attack. A knock on the window helps Dean realize he isn't just hearing things, and raising the blinds reveals Adam, clinging tightly to the windowsill. There is a fairly creepy-looking owl perched on his head and looking quite pleased to be there. Dean kind of stares at it for a second… owls a lot freakier up close. It's the eyes, man. Seriously, those-

"_Open the fucking window!_" Adam whisper-shouts, and oh, yeah, right. Dean releases the latch and pulls up the glass, pulling his baby brother inside and getting a jolt of healing juice as he does it, and _hot damn_, that feels awesome. He can see why Adam prefers to dress in layers now—if he didn't, he'd probably have people rubbing up against him all day long like a bunch of affection-starved cats.

"Ummm, we have a door, too, you know," Sam deadpans.

"I have to keep this quiet. Otherwise, I'll never get away." Adam scratches his head—and is apparently rather shocked to find that the owl is there. He swats at the bird. "Fuck off!" The owl simply hoots indignantly and flutters just out of his reach until he stops swinging… at which point it promptly reclaims its perch. Adam eventually just sighs. "Fine, stay up there. But if you shit on me, we're finding out the hard way how far around your head twists. Just sayin'." The owl hoots in acknowledgment, largely unperturbed.

"And why, exactly, are you trying to get away?" Dean asks. "Where did you even _find_ these yahoos?"

"What is it with you and questions? Does it really matter?" Adam asks.

"Force of habit," Sam shrugs. "Generally speaking, you never know what kind of information is going to be useful on a hunt."

Adam shrugs. "Alright, sit down, kids. It's time for another story."

* * *

_So, one day, Our Intrepid Hero is wandering the Earth, trying to figure out what in the flying fuck he is supposed to do with his life now that he has been legally dead for like two years and has magic powers or whatever. As he is wandering around, he notices a big, furry dog approaching him out of the corner of his eye. Then he notices the big, furry dog is actually a huge _**FUCKING BEAR**_. Now, he didn't yet know about the whole 'beloved by God's creatures' aspect of his newfound lease on life, so he did what most people would do when confronted with a _**FUCKING BEAR**_ and assumed it was going to eat him, and that was totally not cool with him, because if he was going to keep dying and coming back to life like he was goddamn Super Mario, he at least wanted some _variety_ in his deaths to keep things interesting. Now, since he was a Boy Scout, he had a little wilderness training and sort-of maybe kind-of knew what to do in a bear attack._

_Stretching up to his full height, he squared his shoulders and announced: "Go away, bear! I am a human!"_

_It kept coming._

"_Back, foul beast!"_

_It kept coming._

"_I will beat you up!" he said, sounding about as threatening as Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear._

_It started coming __**faster**__._

_Now, Adam's scoutmasters taught him that you are never supposed to run from a _**FUCKING BEAR**_, but Adam seriously doubted any of those assholes ever had a thousand pounds of claws, fur, teeth, and hunger bearing down on them like a hairy-ass freight train, so __**fuck**__ them. He ran like a bitch, as fast as his bitch legs would carry him because dying is not one of those things that gets easier the more you do it. Naturally, the damn thing just follows him, and no cartoon can properly encapsulate the pants-shitting terror that comes with being chased by a _**FUCKING BEAR**_. The chase scene seriously lasts for like 15 minutes and Adam is pretty sure his heart is going to explode if he keeps going, and decides that he is okay with that since at least it'd be something new. _

_He gets deeper and deeper into the woods, and is just about to pass out (again!) when halle-fuckin'-lujah, he sees a nasty-looking old cabin he can hide in. Unfortunately, he doesn't see the backwoods hillbilly gun-nut inside cabin, so upon entrance, he is greeted with the business end of a shotgun._

"_HEW THA HEYLL ER YEW?" shouts the creepy old redneck, who has a beard that's only slightly less scary than the other hairy thing trying to kill him._

"_Don't shoot!" Adam shouts. "Please, you've gotta help me, there's a _**FUCKING BEAR**_—"_

_And right on cue, the aforementioned creature beasts through the backdoor and roars to announce its presence to the world. _

"_HOE-LEE SHEE-IT!" the redneck hollered._

_Initially, Adam saw nothing wrong with putting the redneck between himself and the bear, because the redneck had a gun and Adam had nothing but soft, tasty flesh. After learning more about his condition, he later realized that this was basically the same thing as putting someone between a Mama Bear and her cub, and thus his actions only increased the level of fuck in the clusterfuck he was stuck in. Mama Bear charged the redneck, who unloaded a shotgun blast into her chest. Said shotgun blast had about as much effect a handful of sand, so the redneck quickly found his gun knocked aside and had no choice but to take up Adam's former position of running like a bitch. He felt kind of bad about it at first, but considering what happened next, he later decided that he was being followed by some kind of Karma Bear, sent to eat psycho assholes._

"_Hello?" a voice cried from somewhere in the house. "Oh my Gosh. Is someone there? Please, help me!"_

_Adam followed his ears to the basement, where he found a beat-up girl tied to a chair. She looked completely shocked when she saw him. "…I can't believe it."_

"_Are you okay?" Adam asked. She had all kinds of bruises and nasty cuts on her, and was covered in dirt and blood. To be honest, it was a pretty dumb question._

"…_I'm better than okay. I'm __**saved**__!" she cried, eying him with adoration. "Please, get me out of here. This guy is freaking psychotic! He's going to sacrifice me to the Devil or something!"_

_Taking a closer look around the basement revealed all sorts of creepy devil-looking crap. Candles, weird symbols, dead animals… as if tying some girl to a chair in your basement isn't bad enough, this guy had her down there with a bunch of rotting animal corpses. Adam sincerely hoped the creepy Devil-worshipping buttface was being eaten, slowly, as he struggled with the ropes to untie the girl. Eventually, he got 'em off, and made the fatal mistake of offering her his hand as she got up._

_She got an instant dose of magic Cure, and nothing was ever the same again._

"_OHMYGOSH," she said. "That was… like… __**magic! **__You're, like, my __**angel**__. You're the answer to my prayers!" She was totally biting her nails and practically bouncing up and down with glee. "Thankyou thankyou thankyou!"_

"_Ummm, you're welcome, I guess," Adam said, feeling a little uncomfortable at the way she was looking at him like she kind of wanted to crush him in a hug and then swallow him whole as a way of showing her gratitude._

"_I must. Know the name. Of my savior," she said._

"_I'm Adam," he replied. "Nice to… uhhh… meet you?"_

"_My name is Stephanie," said the girl. "And I am totally going to pay you back for saving me. You won't regret it, I promise!"_

_He totally does._

_From that point on, she follows him around. __**Everywhere**__._

"_You're like…" she says with such a strong Valley Girl accent that Adam is kind of shocked anyone can actually talk like that. "Like… like… _awesome_! You're like the Messiah! You just go around helping people, and that is __**so**__ cool!"_

_Adam shrugs. "I really don't have anything better to do. Also, I really wish you'd stop following me."_

"_But you're _amazing_!" Stephanie cries. "And other people should totally see that!" Adam walks into a diner just to try and get away from her. It's kind of stupid, but he's hoping the Men's Restroom Sign will be a powerful enough ward to keep her out for a few minutes. Big mistake. "Hey, you!" she says to one of the diner's patrons as Adam walks past him._

"_What?" says the patron, who looks like a trucker and smells like a bus._

"_Behold the power of the Messiah!" she says. Then she picks up a knife and __**stabs it into his fucking hand. **__He is pinned to the table._

"_GAAAAAAAH!" the man cries._

"_**JESUS CHRIST**__," Adam shouts so hard it practically blows the dumb girl backwards. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"_

_She flinches at his tone. "Sorry. I was just… you know… trying to… I got a little carried away, okay?" she says sheepishly._

_Adam groans and yanks the knife out of the guy's hand. "Well, stop it!" he says, and touches the guy, healing him. "Wait. On second thought, __**do**__ get carried away. Far, __**far**__ away. Forever."_

"…_oh, my Lord," says the man, and now Adam wants to jam the knife in his own eye for being so stupid._

"_See?" says Stephanie. "He totally fixed you up! His fingers are… just... like… magic!"_

"_It's a miracle!" one of the waitresses shouts. Adam goes to bash his head on a wall for a few years, while Stephanie proselytizes about the Wonder and Awesomeness of Adam…_

* * *

"…and the rest is history," Adam says with a shrug.

Sam blinks at him. "Wow. You… definitely have the Winchester luck."

Adam gives him a withering stare. "I noticed."

Dean crosses his arms, slipping on his thinking cap. "So why don't you just run away?"

"They always track me down," Adam sighs, leaning against the wall. "I don't know how they do it."

"Maybe they follow the trail of beauty and goodness and fairy dust?" Dean grins.

Adam throws the owl at him, and Dean barely dodges it before it flutters back to the Chosen Perch. "Go to Hell," he grunts.

"Been there, done that, kid," Dean winks.

Sam looks pensive. "Maybe Dean's right," he says. "Adam, when you try to escape, how do you do it?"

Adam gives him the fish-eye. "Uhhh… I run?"

"You don't use a car?" Sam asks.

"I don't **have** a car. I had one, but then I **died**, remember?" Adam _duhs_.

"You could steal one," Dean suggests.

Adam looks appalled. "I'm not gonna _steal_ a freakin' car!" he says, and Dean is forcibly reminded how very, very different their respective upbringings were.

"In all seriousness," Sam says, keeping everyone on task, "if you're travelling on foot all the time, you probably really _are_ leaving some pretty obvious tracks. It wouldn't be hard to follow you, especially considering how… err… _visible_ your condition makes you."

The owl hoots in agreement with Sam. Adam glares at it.

"Alright, so we just need to smuggle you out of here, give you a decent head-start to get away from the crazies," Dean says.

Adam looks a little surprised. "You'll do it?"

Dean shrugs. "Sure. What's family for?"

Adam tilts his head. "Getting you damned?"

"_Besides_ that," Dean brushes him off.

Sam lays out a plan. "So, we just need to figure out how to smuggle you out of here without anyone noticing. Any ideas?"

Adam looks like he is about to say something, when suddenly, the ever-chipper voice of Stephanie bounces its way into the room from outside. "_Knock knock!_" she says. "_Okay, I'm coming in! I hope everyone is decent! Not that there's anything wrong with… you know… what you guys do as consenting adults, but_…"

Their baby brother responds to her voice by going wide-eyed, giving an "_oh, shit!_" and doing a truly spectacular superman dive through the open window, launching himself so suddenly that the owl doesn't have time to let go and winds up smacking onto the windowsill, knocking itself out.

Sam and Dean stare after him, slightly awed. "9.0," Dean says.

"7.5" Sam counters. Dean raises his eyebrows, and Sam shrugs. "Points off for owl cruelty."

Stephanie enters the room carrying his and Sam's duffle bags. "Here you go, boys!" she smiles.

"Uhhh, where did you get those?" Dean asks.

Stephanie just brushes them off. "Oh, Adam told us about your car. It is **so **_**cool!**_" she squeals. "We found it in the parking lot and got your things for you."

Sam gives an uneasy nod, his face twitching in that special way it does when he is trying so hard to be polite that it physically hurts. "Thank you, Stephanie, really, but we'd like to go to bed now."

"Cool," she smiles. "No problem. Would you like me to shut the window for…" she trails off, seeing the unconscious owl. "Oh, _ew_. I'm **so** sorry, I had **no** idea there was a dead bird in here." She moves towards it, wrapping her robe around her hand. "Let me get that…" she says, when suddenly, the owl springs to life and snaps at her. "Oh!" she cries, jumping backwards.

The owl hisses at the lot of them and indignantly flies out the window.

Stephanie looks a little freaked. "O…kay. I'll just close this," she says, moving towards the window.

"Uhhhh, no!" Dean says, pulling her back. "We like the, uhhh, night air. Yeah. Fresh, night air."

"Nothing like it," Sam agrees.

A quirk of her eyebrow is the response. "Whatever you say. Sleep tight," she says as she leaves. "Don't make too much noise!" she adds with a wink as she shuts the door, and Dean vomits in his mouth a little.

After she's gone, Sam sticks his head out the window, and it is only a minute before he pulls Adam back in. The kid looks a little worse for wear, his all-white outfit now mottled with green and brown, shredded in a few places. There are a couple of squirrels clinging to his shirt, looking quite comfy, but other than few smudges of mud, however, he's basically unharmed. "Whoa," Dean says. "What happened to you?"

Adam grunts. "Broke a few tree branches with my face on the way down."

Sam's eyes suddenly light up. "But you're okay, right?"

The kid rolls his neck around. "Yeah, I'm fine."

The grin on Sam's face is far too devilish for anyone's comfort. "So you're pretty much invincible. Nothing can actually kill you or even seriously hurt you, right?"

Adam's face has suspicion written all over it in flaming holy oil. "I guess not. Why?"

"Well, we need to smuggle you out of here. And we need to do it in a way that keeps you hidden, so no one knows what we're up to." Dean thinks he sees where this is going. He likes it.

"And?" Adam prods.

"Since you're not exactly fragile cargo… knowing that opens up a few options for us that we might not have with other people," Sam says with a grin, reaching down and pulling up his duffle bag. He plops it down on the bed. "Options like, say, the luggage compartment."

Adam gapes at them. "You're fuckin' crazy. There's no way I'll fit in that." Kid has a point. He's not a ginormotron like Sammy, but he's at least as tall as Dean, which puts him just over the six foot mark.

"You won't fit _easily_," Sam amends. "But you'll fit."

"Screw you. I'm nobody's carry-on," Adam crosses his arms.

Dean just shrugs. "Look, kid, we're not exactly running over with good ideas here. If you want to be subtle about this, Sam's idea is the best plan I've heard so far, unless you can think of something better."

Adam purses his lips. Glares at both of them. Opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. Grunts. "…fine," he says, surrendering to the inevitable.

"We're using your duffle," Dean says to Sam.

"Why me?" Sam asks.

Dean shrugs. "Your idea, your duffle."

"What are we gonna do with all my clothes?" he whines.

"Dude, come on. You can buy new clothes. I don't think there's gonna be any shortages of button-downs and v-necks any time soon," Dean deadpans.

Sam arms himself with the puppy pout. "But what if I _like_ these shirts?"

"Okay, fine! You can put the ones you like in mine. Happy?" Dean groans.

Their baby brother just stares at them slack-jawed. "…could you guys be just a little more gay? I mean, it's just not quite awkward enough that you're my secret half-brothers. I think it'd be great if we could get a little more incest vibes going between you two."

Dean pushes down the urge to punch his invincible baby brother back out the window. "Get in the bag, before I fold you up myself."

Sam, on the other hand, just grins at Adam. "Would it help if I said you'll probably fit better if you're not wearing any clothes?"

He gets a squirrel to the face for that one.

* * *

Once again, there are times when it's really convenient having a giant around. Dean is pretty sure there is no way he could carry a bag full of Adam on his shoulders and look as nonchalant about the whole thing as Sam does. They bid the cultists a not-so-fond farewell as they head to the car, feeding them some bullshit about feeding some old lady's cats while she's in the hospital. Fortunately, they don't run into Stephanie on their way, so nobody has to be knocked out. Dean is only _slightly_ disappointed.

Sam gets a little too close to a tree, and his duffle brother takes the brunt of the impact. Sam grimaces. "Sorry," he whispers.

"_I hate you both. So much_," Adam grunts from inside the bag. It was kind of a difficult fit, definitely not one a normal person could pull off without serious injury, and Dean figures that even if the kid can't be injured, it has to be uncomfortable as Hell in that bag. The smell alone would probably be enough to kill most mortals.

"Don't worry," Dean says. "You'll be out of there in no time. We're almost to the..."

Dean rounds a corner and finds a big pile of nothing where the Impala used to be. "…_**car**_."

The elder Winchester immediately goes into full combat mode, all sensors wired towards Impala location, all power routed towards destroying anything that comes between him and his baby. Alarms blare, nuclear missiles are primed, lasers are locked and loaded, all bets are set to the 'off' position. It is fucking _**JUDGMENT DAY**_ for the stupid bastard who **dared** to touch his Black Beauty. "Where. Is. My **car.**" His breath comes in pants, his voice is a low, deadly growl.

"Oh, shit," Sam says, the shock of the moment causing him to lose his grip on the situation. Said situation lands with a _flop_.

"_Ow!_" he shouts. "_What the fuck, Sam?_"

Dean is scanning the parking lot. There are no signs of the Impala anywhere. "**WHERE. IS. MY. CAR.**" He roars, more beast than man.

"Adam, the car's gone," Sam explains, doing his part to look for it as well. The dark of night makes it kind of hard make things out distinctly, but Dean does not forget where he parks and Dean could find that car if he was _**blind**_. He knows her tire tracks, he could follow her scent, hear her engine and pick it out in rush hour traffic in fucking New York City.

"_The Impala? Shit!_" Adam says, sounding… actually pretty horrified. But not nearly as distressed as Dean, who desperately wants to kill something small and helpless to relieve his blinding anger so he can _think straight_.

"Dean!" Sam says suddenly. "That girl! She got our stuff out of the car. She got our stuff out of the car _without the keys_."

The near-feral rage building up inside Dean finds a target. "That **bitch!** I'm gonna kill—I can't believe—" He runs over to Sam's bag and slides to it on his knees. "Adam! You stupid little shit, what the fuck were you thinking?"

"_What? What did I do?_" Adam asks.

"That girl! Steffy, or whatever! You told her about the car!" Dean rages.

"…_no, I didn't_," Adam rebuts.

That stalls Dean's anger for a second. "She said you told her… about…"

"_Dude, I was climbing up to your room as soon as she left. When would I have told her about the Impala?_"

"Then… how did…"

Lightbulbs go off. Puzzle pieces align themselves into a picture. Regis asks him to lock in his final answer. "The owl…" The owl hissed at her. It flew away from her like… son of a _bitch_. "Adam," Dean says, sounding much less angry and much more _tired_. "When you rescued Stephanie from the devil-worshipper, how did you _know_ he was a devil worshipper?"

"_Umm… I don't know. He had devil stuff all over the place_."

"What _kind_ of devil stuff?" Dean says, a little more urgently. "Describe it to me."

"_Fuck, I don't know, umm… weird symbols? Pentagrams? They were everywhere._"

Dean sighs. "Did one of these pentagrams just happen to be on the floor underneath Stephanie when you untied her?"

"…_yeah, actually, I think so. How did you know?_"

Dean gently lowers himself to the ground and begins beating his forehead against the dirt.

This leaves Sam to take over exposition duties. "Adam," he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't think you saved a girl from a Satanist."

"…_huh? Why not?_"

"I think you saved a **demon** from a _hunter_," he finishes.

"Well, look at you! A regular Wikipedia Brown, solving the mystery at last," an agonizingly familiar voice calls out from the darkness. Stephanie steps into the dim light of the parking lot, still in her bright pink robe. "Howdy, boys. Long-time, no kill," she says, and suddenly, she is Stephanie no longer, and _**dear God**_is Dean tired of this Hellwhore.

"Meg," he grunts, getting back to his feet and preparing to fight, only to realize that they are already surrounded by at least four other possessed cultists.

"_Meg?_" Adam asks. "_Who's Meg?_" He is ignored.

"I was seriously beginning to wonder if you boys were ever gonna show up!" she smiles, all shark-teeth and hate. "I mean, I figured you two would mosey along to fetch your precious widdle bastard eventually, but _damn_ did you take your time about it. I thought I was gonna have to take out a friggin' classified ad! Or start putting up flyers! All this _healing_ bullshit… it's just not **me**, y'know?"

"Well, excuse me if I'm not too broken up about your wait, you immortal bitch," Dean says with a snide smile.

"What do you want, Meg?" Sam growls.

"The same thing I want every day, Sammy!" Meg says with faux innocence. "Your intestines in a frying pan. Preferably while you can still feel 'em sizzle. And it looks like today's my lucky day!"

This is bad. They've got enough Holy Water to keep five demons at bay for about thirty seconds, and other than that, it's good old fisticuffs with a bunch of super-strength, unkillable meatsuits. The goddamn Magic Knife was in the trunk, along with, oh, _almost all of their other weapons_. They… wow, they might actually be kind of screwed here. Their only real Ace-in-the-hole is Adam, who is…

…currently trapped in duffle bag being casually swung from side-to-side by Meg. "Thanks for packing this for me," she says. "It'll make shipping so much easier. I was thinking somewhere in the Middle East… a nice, blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy like him is sure to be a real hit with the locals over there."

"_Put me down, you psycho bitch!_" Adam shouts.

"Let him go!" Sam adds. "You can't even hurt him."

Meg responds by drop kicking the bag into a tree.

"_**OW**_," Adam shouts.

"I can't _kill_ him, you mean," Meg amends. "I can definitely hurt him. And I will. Right after I'm done with you." She nods to one of her henchmen. "Stuff him in a closet somewhere. This might take a while..."

The poor possessed bastard nods to her. The last thing Dean sees is the demonic son of a bitch hefting the bag of Adam over his shoulder and carrying him off into the night.

Then, he feels an impact on the back of his head, and suddenly, he don't see so good no more…

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

**A/N: **So, who guessed the twist ahead of time? I tried to include little clues during Adam's story without being overly obvious. This writing stuff can be harder than it looks. Oh, and if you're wondering why the Hunter shooting the bear didn't work… it's because his shotgun was loaded with rock salt. XP I couldn't find a way to include that in the story because it wasn't really relevant, but I figured you might want to know. ;)


	3. Frolicking through the Forest

**Title:** Shiny Happy People [3/4]  
**Author: morkhan**  
**Warnings:** Cursing, snark, trippiness, Winchesters getting their asses kicked, Winchesters kicking ass.  
_**SERIOUS WARNING:**_ there is some really graphic violence and torture towards the end of this chapter.  
**Characters:** Dean, Sam, Adam, Meg, OCs.  
**Rating:** R (This part only)  
**Word Count:** 5995  
**Summary: ** Adam may have princess powers, but he is nobody's damsel-in-distress.  
**Disclaimer**: Characters, universe, and recognizable things belong to CW and EK. The ridiculous plot is, sadly, mine.

**Author's Notes: **Ha! That'll teach me to guess at how many chapters something will be. Oh well, lol. Seriously, though, there is only one more chapter after this. I guess you could say I'm inserting chapter markers where commercial breaks would usually go on the show. :P Oh, and _**WARNING!**_ There is some pretty graphic torture-related violence at the end of the chapter. Sorry if you're squeamish, but SPN is all about some gruesome violence and I would feel remiss if I didn't include some.

You will hate me for this cliffhanger. :P Please press through your hatred and review anyway! 3

* * *

This is stupid.

No, seriously. This is just fucking stupid. He is stuck in a stupid fucking bag that smells like stupid fucking Sam because stupid fucking Dean didn't think to reach for the stupid fucking zipper while he was chatting with stupid fucking Meg. His stupid fucking cult was lead by a stupid fucking demon, and stupid fucking Adam was too fucking stupid to realize it.

Fuck this. Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, **FUCK**.

It's just so damn_ dumb_. It defies all description. If this were a video game, this would mark the point where he just gapes at the screen for a few seconds before turning the game off and deciding that the disc is more useful as a coaster. He doesn't want to play anymore, doesn't want this stupid fucking life or this stupid fucking family or this stupid fucking destiny.

Harry Potter never had to put up with this shit.

And isn't that just the crux of the matter? People write stories about this shit—fantastic tales of adventure that start with a seemingly ordinary character discovering that he is heir to an incredible legacy he didn't even know about… a secret family, an ancient bloodline, the father he never knew and the world of monsters and darkness that he kept at bay. If he thought about it in just those terms, it was kind of cool… but it wasn't that simple. He had already died, was already in heaven, and as far as he could tell, the only reason they brought him back at all was to fuck with Dean. He tried to be a hero, and got nothing but Hell for his trouble. Whatever fucked up story this is, he is not the main character. No one gives a _shit_ about him.

Well, except Sam and Dean. _Maybe_.

Still, he should just go. He wants nothing more to do with this cosmic melodrama, and he's fairly sure his brothers have been in worse situations than this. He'd probably just get in the way. And he doesn't even _like_ them. Much.

He has every reason to tell this whole world to fuck off and just go hide in the mountains somewhere. So why can't he do it? Why does he feel like breaking out and kicking some ass and saving the day? The angels didn't even fucking _know_ how well their little spiel played perfectly to everything he had dreamed of as a kid. He fucking loved superhero stories. Becoming a doctor was, as far as he was concerned, the closest any human could actually come to being a real live superhero. They fought off evils that ruined lives, shattered families, crushed dreams into dust. They _saved _people. So, when the angels told him they were bringing him back to life to save the world… just. Fuck. Yes.

Maybe he should do it to spite them. Save something anyway, just to prove he can. Maybe he should do it to pay back Sam and Dean's… _attempted_ rescue. Hell, they **did** try. It wasn't their fault he was just a step too slow. Maybe he should do it because it's right. Or because his mother would be disappointed if he didn't. Or his father would be ashamed of his cowardice. Or because he just fucking feels like it.

In the end, he doesn't do it for the angels. He doesn't do it for mom, dad, Sam, Dean, or even himself.

He does it for the car.

She's a fucking beautiful car; a true Lady, and she deserves to be treated as such. These Hell-Holes violated her sanctity with their foul presence. They touched her in places only trusted hands were meant to touch, and Adam can't imagine how dirty she must feel, wherever she is.

There is only one way to make this right.

The demons must **pay.**

* * *

His brothers did way too good a job packing him. He can barely move, his elbow is in his mouth and his knees are folded up and pressing into his kidneys. He's pretty sure he can scratch his ear with his toes if he needs to. Oh well. Nobody ever said being a hero was easy… he starts off slowly, trying to pull one of his hands free so he can feel around for evidence of a zipper. When his hand gets stuck on his hipbone, he lets his frustration give him the strength of ten fish, and starts flopping around as violently as he can to try and untwist himself or maybe break the stupid bag open. After about a minute or two, he hears the door to wherever they tossed him open, and feels a sharp kick to his ribs that knocks him into the wall.

"_Quit moving, you little shit._"

The door closes again after that and… is that air he feels? Fuck yes, it is! His big toe is sticking out of the bag… somehow. Now he just needs to figure out how to get the rest of him to follow it. He needs a plan. He knows his anatomy. He will take his knowledge of the way the human body twists and moves, and all different ways to dislocate joints to give himself more flexibility, and use it to carefully construct an escape plan…

…which mostly just involves more fish-flopping.

"_I __**told**__ you to quit_—"

Adam follows the sound and bolts forward, ramming into the demon and knocking them both on their asses. He's only halfway out of the bag at this point—he _really_ has to congratulate his brothers on the sheer impossibility of what they did to his **arms**—but it's the bottom half, so at least he's mobile.

"_Oh, now you're gonna get it. Come here_."

Adam obliges by dashing forward, bag-first, and ramming the dumb bastard again. Demons aren't too smart, it seems. They are, however, _plenty_ strong, which he finds out by having one grab him and toss him into the air, slamming against something with a knob that is just the _perfect _size for bashing right into his teeth.

"**FUCK**," he shouts as he flops painfully onto the floor. He hears the crack of a bone breaking, and—wait, no, that was the crack of a bone popping into place. He has a shoulder again! Fuckin' sweet! You never know how useful those things are until you lose them. Shoulders are _awesome_. Using his newfound ability to actually send neural signals to his left arm, he finally wriggles free of Sam's malodorous carry-on case… and gets a Hell-powered fist to the face for his trouble. It's not enough to knock him down… just enough to make him stumble backwards and scrub against the wall trying to keep from falling like his blood-alcohol content somewhere around 120%.

"You're dead, kid," the demon snarls.

"Make me," Adam counters. Which… fuck, that makes no sense. Whatever. He's new at this.

He raises his fists, even though he's not exactly sure what to do with them. He is a little under-dressed for this. After several failed attempts at Adam-compacting, Sam and Dean finally talked him down to a tanktop undershirt and a pair of Sam's pajama pants, because there was absolutely no way he was getting any nakeder in front of those pervy bastards. Seriously, he's starting to wonder if that 'erotic codependence' stuff was more than just that douche Zachariah talking out of his ass. Sam's pants are way too long (who even **makes** clothes for people with ostrich legs like his?), and he's not even wearing any shoes. The demon is possessing the only Asian in his cult, a guy named Chang. Oh, fuck this demon, he _liked_ Chang. He better not have been in there for long…

Adam "fights" for about seven seconds before he realizes he is massively outmatched, and all it takes for him to affirm his conclusion is being sent ass-first through a closed window. Ow, ow, _**owwww**_. Even if his injuries knit themselves back together in seconds, they hurt like a _bitch_ when he gets them. As he stands up and tries to scrape the glass shards off his butt, he tries to formulate a newer, better plan for success in the face of demonic invasion.

The demon bursts out of the house, followed by a buddy. The other guy is possessing Louie, a curly, black-haired surfer who Adam saved from an allergic reaction to shellfish. Louie got on his nerves, but he always seemed like a decent guy… fuck, how long have these people been possessed? Is he a fucking demon magnet?

Wait. Whoa. Time out. Magnet… he's definitely a magnet for something.

"Hey! Assholes!" he shouts, waving his arms. He tries to think of a good insult for demons. "Uhh… your mom baked cookies for orphans! And your dad was a _massage therapist_!"

Fuck if that doesn't actually seem to work. The two promptly break into a run, and Adam leads the charge. _Little bitch legs, don't fail me now_, he thinks as he charges into the woods. He's not 100% on how to find the spot he's looking for, but he's fairly sure he'll figure it out eventually. The only question is whether or not Sam and Dean will have any fluids left on their insides by the time he does. He's pretty impressed with the speed at which he is fleeing, until he looks back and sees both demons gaining on him fast. Apparently, they have super _speed_, too. Son of a _bitch_, why couldn't he get a **cool** superpower? At this point, he'd settle for extra-sharp teeth or being double-jointed. _Anything_ besides Healing Punches.

It isn't long before Louie-Demon grabs a handful of his undershirt and slams him into the ground before climbing on top of him and proceeding to dribble Adam's face with his fists like it's some kind of blood-filled basketball. And even though he knows it's useless in the long-term, Adam winds up punching the guy just to get him off so he can stumble back to his feet.

"Man, that feels good!" the demon sneers as Adam tries to use his mental windshield wipers to clean the flashing spots off of his eyes. "I could let you beat me up all day, kid."

"Yeah, well… too bad I can't cure _ugly_," Adam counters uselessly. He's too busy trying to think back to his kindergarten days and remember which direction was 'up.' He's pretty sure he learned that in kindergarten. His kindergarten teacher was _hot_, which he remembers quite well, even if he was too young to understand it at the time…

Louie-Demon just laughs at him, and Adam decides he can worry about up later; right now the only direction he should be concerned with is _away_. He starts running again, only to realize that he doesn't know where Chang-Demon is, and that he should probably figure that out before Chang-Demon does something sneaky like clothesline him with a hugantic tree branch before stabbing it through his chest.

Except, oh, wait, that already happened. Oh well. At least now he knows whose blood he's laying in. Trying to pull himself up with his arms just results in Chang-Demon shoving the branch the rest of the way through him, pinning him to the ground. Fuck, oh _fuck, __**oh**_**FUUUUUCK OW OW OWWWW SHIT CRAP**.

Adam screams a very manly, blood-filled scream, and the demons just laugh at him.

"Face it, maggot. You're fucked," says Chang-Demon.

Adam opens his eyes just in time to see what is coming. It's cheesy as Hell, but he can't resist. "Better than being bucked," he grins.

"Bucked?" says Louie-Demon, shortly before getting an antler shovedthrough his ribcage at about 35mph.

_**BUCKED**_**.**

The huge deer's sudden charge knocks Chang-Demon aside as well, giving Adam time to OH SO VERY PAINFULLY pull the tree out of his lungs and desperately hope it doesn't leave splinters. Is there a name for that? Do they even have a medical term for wood in your lungs? _Besides_ 'dead?'

Finally getting back to his feet lets him take stock of the situation again. Louie is on the buck's antlers. He is literally speared through the chest and stuck there; screaming, flailing and kicking like a beetle trying to get off its back. The deer seems to have no problems supporting his weight and no intention of dropping him, so Adam considers the threat of Louie-Demon dealt with, for the moment, at least.

"Thanks, Bambi," he smiles. Bambi gives a regal nod, causing Louie-Demon to slide further down his antlers.

Chang-Demon, in the meantime, picks himself up off the ground and sets his eyes again on Adam. "Let's see how well you heal yourself up when I **rip your head off your shoulders**."

Adam takes that as his cue to scamper off. He's fairly sure where he is going now—though he'd never admit it to anyone, he's taken walks in the woods occasionally to hang out with the critters. If he can't be _alone_ to think, at least he can hang out with things that generally know when to shut up and let him brood. The place he's going for isn't much further, just a few more _**COCKS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR SON OF A BITCH ASS BASKETS OF USED CONDOMS**_. Adam trips over Sam's never-ending pant legs and sends himself head-over-heels-over-head-over-heels-over-head into a tree trunk. He doesn't even have time to turn around before Chang-Demon slams into him and starts trying to chop down the tree using Adam's face as an incredibly dull axe. And even if he can't be killed, he's starting to wonder if he can be beaten into unconsciousness because… seriously lots of pretty colors in the world right now. Lots of pretty colors that did not exist before all this head trauma. He wants to name them, but they are all so special. What should he call the color of the sky? Porpluerange? His blood is a lovely shade of crimcobauve. The leaves are greblakdigo in the lemorpulent sunlight. There are some yelvendarold birdies flying around his head.

Birdies! They must be his crazy birdies. He has always wondered how hard you would have to hit your head to cause crazy birdies to appear in real life and now he knows that the answer is very, very hard, a lot. He wants to talk to his crazy birdies and learn their secrets, but they are going away. No, they are flying around someone else's head! WHORE CRAZY BIRDIES. YOU DO NOT JUST FLY AROUND ANYONE'S HEAD. YOU ONLY FLY AROUND ADAM'S HEAD. Except… no, the crazy birdies are attacking the someone else. They are helping Adam, and he wants to tell them to stop! That the man they are attacking is a big meaniebuttface and will hurt them with great hurting. But he can't talk with his mouth right now on account of he kind of forgot what words mean what things.

Something bumps into his leg, and it is a turtle. The turtle smiles at him as if to say "_I will help you!_" and Adam agrees with the turtle. So he picks up the turtle and tells it to hide for a second. When it does, he uses its hard part to bash meaniebuttface's meanie butt face in, and… whoa.

Fuck, that was _weird_. Did he just bash a demon's face in with a turtle?

He checks.

Yes, he definitely did. Neither demon nor turtle seem particularly happy about it, but eh, what's done it done. He pats the turtle on the head and gives a quick "sorry!" before setting it down and resuming the chase sequence.

"_Get back here, you little shit!_" Chang-Demon shouts, and… seriously. Why do people do that? Do they actually expect anyone to _listen_ to them? 'Oh, I _was_ planning on running for my life, but since you told me not to, I decided I'd rather stand here and let you strangle me with my intestines.' Of course no one expects that.

Which is exactly why Adam screeches to a halt at the perfect moment to intercept Chang-Demon's face with his elbow. He doesn't care that the demon is probably better off now than before—that felt _great_ to actually pull off, and Adam is right where he wants to be anyway. It might take a few minutes for her to show up, but it never fails…

"I'm going to spend _years_ taking you apart and putting you back together," the demon snarls. It tries to sweep Adam's legs out from under him, but Adam surprises both his enemy and himself by leaping over the sweeping kick. That he is so busy gaping at his own awesomeness that he completely fails to dodge a second kick is a surprise to no one. Again the demon is on top of him, and if Adam didn't know better, he'd say there's some kind of serious control kink going on here.

"I am going to—"

"Talk some more? Never would've guessed," Adam deadpans, and more kinkiness ensues as the demon wraps fingers around his throat and starts squeezing like he is a stress-relief ball. "_Play… nice…_" he chokes out.

"Make me," the demon smirks.

"_I'm… not the one… in charge around here…_" Okay, getting a little oxygen starved.

"Oh, really? Got another little surprise for me? Another deer? A trained attack badger? The 5th Beaver Infantry?"

"_Ahhh… no…_" Air. Air is fucking wonderful. He would really very much like some air right now. Things are becoming very binary—nothing but shadows on white. The demon choking him is a big shadow, and getting bigger by the second, except… no. That's a different shadow. Adam grins.

"Then what is it—" is all he says before the big shadow sends him cartwheeling through the air.

"That," Adam answers, "would be a **FUCKING BEAR**."

The hulking beast roars with maternal fury and proceeds to lay into Chang-Demon with a special kind of fury that Hell itself would probably cower in fear of. Adam almost feels sorry for the poor bastard. He's being tossed hither and yon, flopping like a ragdoll and making loud, high-pitched noises whenever he is hit like some kind of evil squeaky toy. Both of his legs are very enthusiastically bent the wrong way in the wrong _places_, and Big Mama (as he has affectionately come to call her over the past few weeks) looks like she has no intention of stopping any time soon. Adam kind of wishes she would because, hey, there might still be a person in there and Adam really would like to save them if possible, but sometimes, you just have to take what you can get. His raw animal magnetism sadly did not come with Wild Thornberry powers, so he can't talk to the animals. Just get repeatedly cuddled by them.

So Adam leaves Big Mama with her chew toy. Or starts to, anyway. "That's **it!**" Chang-Demon snarls as the bear drags him along the ground by his broken foot. "I've **had it**! The boss said to keep your ass under control, and there is one surefire way to do that. Open wide, kid, and say **AHHHHHHHHHHH!**" As the demon shouts, a huge snake-shaped cloud of black smoke erupts from his mouth and circles around through the air. And Adam, dipshit that he is, lets his mouth fall open without even realizing it, an open invitation to hop in that the demon happily accepts.

It is easily the worst taste in the history of tongues. Take a can of moist dog food, leave it open and out in the sun for a month, sprinkle it with powdered cow shit, marinate it in garbage water and multiply the end result by the square of the ass boils of a 600lb man, and you might come _close_ to how god-awful demon smoke tastes going down. Adam falls to his hands and knees, and waits. And waits. And waits. And… nothing happens. He feels a little tingly, maybe, but he isn't exactly feeling possessed. All in all, it's kind of disappoint—

**HNNNNNNNNNNNNG**.

A fucking C4 detonates in his stomach. Really. That's the only way to describe the feeling that suddenly erupts from his center. He's pretty sure there is some kind of audible, dull _FOOM_ that comes from inside of him, and… fuck, did he just _light up_? He did! He flashed streetlight-orange for like two seconds and for one of those seconds, he could swear he saw his hand bones through his skin. The feeling doesn't last very long, but it is massively unpleasant and leaves him feeling a little gassy in its wake. Standing up unsteadily, he puts a fist to his mouth for a second before letting out a big, juicy **BURRRRRRRP**. A tiny little whiff of black smoke escapes from his mouth as he belches. The smoke floats languidly through the air for a few seconds before getting caught on a slight breeze and evaporating, and Adam gets the funniest feeling that was all that was left of Chang-Demon in the world. Fortunately, it wasn't all that was left of Chang.

"HELP," the poor guy moans. Big Mama is no longer attacking him, but she is _sitting_ on him, which cannot feel anything but horribly unpleasant.

Adam runs over to the bear and gently coaxes her off of his favorite Asian-American Cult Member, before giving him a healing hand. "Ummm…" Adam says, because it's hard to find the right words for this situation. "You okay?"

Chang responds by placing a hand on Adam's shoulder. "Yes. Thank you. Goodbye." And then he runs away faster than anyone with legs that short should be able to. Maybe the demon _didn't_ have super speed. Maybe that was just the meatsuit. Adam just shakes his head, pats Big Mama on the nose in gratitude, and takes off at full sprint back towards camp. Sam and Dean might not have much time left, but if he can get to them before the clock hits zero… he can push the reset button and at least give them a chance…

* * *

Meg is a bitch. This cannot be said too loudly, too emphatically, or too much. Meg is a stone-cold, hardcore, down-and-dirty fish-smelling skank-breathed whore-assed _**BITCH**_ with a capital everything. Dean is going to kill her so hard…

"You boys are so fond of your little Holy Water torture trick," she sneers as she paces around them. "I figured it'd be an… _educational _experience for you to learn what it's like to be on the receiving end." She pauses in front of Dean, and Dean can hear Sam's heart rate skyrocket. "Sadly, I can't really _handle_ Holy Water, and it wouldn't hurt you any way. So I guess we'll just have to settle for the next-best thing."

And then she dumps a ladle of boiling water all over Dean's lap. He is not ashamed in the slightest of the ear piercing scream he lets out—there is some _important_, **highly** sensitive shit down there that Dean has come to value and she is fucking cooking it. It sizzles and scorches and burns and even though Dean can't hear him over the sound of his own screams, he knows Sam is shrieking at Meg right beside him.

Really, the knife stuff wasn't so bad. Meg was no Alistair with a blade, and she had no idea where to put it to inflict the maximum amount of agony. Turns out, the knife was just to pass the time while the water came to a boil.

"_**LET HIM GO**_," Sam roared. "You filthy whore, I will _**ERASE YOU**_ from this fucking planet if you don't let him go **RIGHT. NOW**." He punctuates the last part by lurching forward in his chair, struggling in vain against the steel chains digging into his skin.

Meg smacks him with the steaming hot ladle. "Wait your turn, Sammy."

Dean is in far, **far** too much agony to think of anything coherent besides shouting and cursing and struggling to relieve the horrible scorching pain in his man-parts, but his mind finds the strength to push aside the pain when Meg goes to fetch another ladle and brings it over to Sammy. "Don't you dare," Dean grits. "Don't you **dare**."

"Oh, I dare," she grins, looking right at Dean. "Open wide, Sammy…" And the bitch pours it on his **face**. Sam screams—poor guy can't help it, and that just makes matters worse because the bubbling liquid gets into his mouth and just makes him scream harder, gurgling and choking and screaming. His eyes—_oh god_. He can't even describe them. Sammy's eyes are ruined. He'll never see again.

Dean lurches forward so hard that his chair falls over. "I will **kill you**," he growls. "If it is the last fucking thing I do on this earth I will kill you **with my own hands**."

Sam's screams of agony die down to moans and gentle whimpers, and _**FUCK**_; falling over has reignited the blinding-white pain in his groin and he grinds his teeth so hard he's fairly sure he cracks one of them.

"So you say," Meg says, completely unfazed. "And yet… you've said it before, haven't you? When my puppies killed your precious little stalker girlfriend… or maybe when I crawled up inside Sammy here and he and I had the _time of our lives_… or maybe when I made your daddy my own personal chew toy… we've just got _so much_ history."

She fucking _saunters_ back over to the stove, fetching another ladle. "And yet… I'm still here," she smirks, leaning right into his face, just close enough for him to feel her breath. "I outlived them **all**. I outlived daddy, outlived Lilith, outlived Alistair… I even outlived the _Devil_ himself. No matter how many times you get rid of me, I just keep crawling back." Dean spits at her to keep her attention as he catches movement out of the corner of his eye. She dodges, and grabs a handful of his hair to yank him upward, sneering. "No matter what you worthless bags of pus throw at me, _I'm still __**here.**__"_

"Hey, me too!" a chipper voice sounds out from behind her. Meg drops Dean and turns around just in time to get a frying pan to the face, courtesy of a _very_ roughed-up-looking Adam, blood and mud-stained in the shredded remains of Sam's pajama pants and what barely qualifies as an undershirt. Dean counts it as good karma that the frying pan just happens to be made out of iron, and the blow sends Meg crashing to the floor. "Dean!" Adam shouts, leaping over the prostrate demon and reaching frantic hands towards him. One touch is all it takes, and at this precise moment in time, Dean has the best little bastard secret half-brother on the face of Planet Earth. "Holy _**shit**_, SAM!" Adam gasps, seeing the much more _visible_ damage on Dean's first little brother. Fortunately, it takes nothing more than a poke and Sammy is as good as new and looking like he is ready to _cry_ from relief. Magic fingers indeed.

The newfound strength that comes from Adam's healing mojo combined with Dean's _boiling _(har-har) rage at Meg give him the strength to break the back of his wooden chair, struggling free of the chains to stand up. Adam frees Sam soon after, and the three brothers stand side-by-side as Meg struggles to her feet.

"You think this is a setback?" she growls. "This just means we get to start the fun _all over again_."

"Oh, no," Dean shakes his head. "No more fun for you, bitch. The fun stops here. Forever."

"Oh? And what do you plan on killing me with? You've got _nothing_, and you know it. All your little toys are mine now. Face it, fellas: I've **WON**."

"We've done **way** more impossible shit than gank you, bitch. You're not the last one standing—you're just the nasty-ass leftovers that nobody wanted," Dean smirks.

"Time to take out the trash," Sam adds.

"You… suck," Adam tries. Dean figures he should give the kid a break. He's new at this.

Meg snarls and jumps forward. Dean just barely dodges to the side, grabbing the bitch and throwing her towards Sam, who knocks her down with a two-handed overhead smash. Dean looks around for more cookware and spots a few pots and pans in the sink. They all appear to be iron—God _bless_ this dinky little summer camp.

The demon bitch takes Sam's legs out from under him and _jams a hand through his chest_. It's not much use, however, because Adam springs into action, grabbing Sam's hand and pumping him full of life. The wound seems to heal up around her hand, causing it to get stuck there, and Dean takes full advantage of the distraction by performing a running baseball-swing to her ugly bitch head. Her hand is pulled free of Sam, and the wound heals the rest of the way.

"Hot _damn_ you are handy to have around," Dean says, grinning and slapping Adam on the back, and Adam—holy shit on a stick—actually _grins back_.

This time, it's Meg who takes advantage of their distraction, knocking Sam out of the way and grabbing Adam's neck in a vice grip. Dean is enraged to see the damage he just caused patch itself up like magic. Meg smirks at them. "Works just as well for me, boys. And I'm tougher to begin with." With that, she gives a little squeeze and Adam's neck snaps with a sickening _crack_. Dean is pretty sure his mojo has him covered, but it's still pretty horrifying for a moment to see the kid's entire body go limp and his head awkwardly flopping over as Meg drops him like a sack of potatoes.

Speaking of sacks, Sammy, ever-thinking genius boy that he is, seems to have realized something very helpful about fighting in a kitchen, and has disappeared into the pantry. Dean engages in a little pan-fu with Meg, but the bitch knows how to fight, and her demonic super strength seems to have gone way above average. After a few seconds, he manages to catch his arm and _crushes_ the bone with nothing more than her hand. Oh, dear bitter merciless _GOD ALMIGHTY_, that smarts. Why do there have to be so many different _kinds_ of pain?

Fortunately, Sam has him covered, and chooses that moment to emerge from the pantry wielding an enormous bag of salt, swinging it around and spraying the stuff everywhere. Meg clutches at her face and shrieks as she backs away from the salt cloud, but Sam just keeps pushing her back. Meanwhile, Dean feels something wrap around his ankle, and his splintered arm-bone knits itself back together. Adam gives him a thumbs-up and a smirk as he climbs the counter to get on his feet. "You guys are… like… _crazy_ injury prone. How did you survive this long?"

Dean picks up his frying pan. "We ate our Wheaties," he says, but Adam isn't paying attention to his clever quips. He is staring at the stove and the pot of boiling water.

"Is that thing on?" he says.

Dean nods, but can't elaborate due to two hundred or so pounds of Winchester slamming into him from the side. Meg seems to have activated her mojo and is doing some kind of chant-thingy to sweep away the salt—and apparently, the Sam—so she can get to them again. Dean looks up to see Adam take the boiling water off the eye, and put an empty frying pan on it. What the Hell is he thinking?

As he and Sam disentangle themselves and help each other up, Dean sees Adam take a deep breath, grab the boiling water pot with _his bare hands_, and, screaming in agony the whole time, run forward to try and dump it on Meg. Unfortunately, he slips on the salt falls forward face-first, spilling the damn thing and making matters worse as the water spreads across the floor and washes away the salt keeping Meg at bay.

"Don't quit your day job," she says as she struts through the path he made, being sure to step on him and get a little mojo going to cure her salt wounds. She is moving in a slow, purposeful stride as she approaches them. Sam launches himself forward, and gets elbowed over the kitchen counter for his trouble without Meg even breaking her stride. Dean tries to strike with his own pan, but Meg grabs a sizeable butcher knife off the counter and jams it through his wrist, forcing him to drop the pan and using it to pin him to the counter while she kicks him in the ribs. _Hard_. "You. Can't. Kill. Me." She punctuates each word with a harder, faster kick. "You. Can't. _**WIN.**_"

"It's not whether you win or lose…" Dean hears Adam say, and Meg turns around just in time to get a frying pan to the face; a _red-hot_ frying pan. The superheated iron is pressed into her face and the sound of sizzling flesh is gratifying and _sickening_ at the same time. Adam is wearing a hateful snarl as he just presses the pan even harder into her cauterizing flesh. Eventually, he pushes Meg over and Dean is surprised to see that the pan _stays on her face_. She tries in vain to scream through the iron cookware, but it has fused with the flesh of her meatsuit, and she _can't touch it to pull it off_. The bitch winds up writhing on the floor as Adam looks down at her in scorn. "…it's how you play the game."

Much, _much_ better. Dean will give the kid some points for that.

Sam is recovering on the other side of the counter, looking at the writhing, silently shrieking Meg in what looks to be equal parts abject horror and genuine admiration. "…dude. That is fucking _twisted_," he finally says.

Adam shrugs. "Just wanted her to shut up. So I stuck something over her mouth."

Dean smiles. "I like the way you think, kid. That bitch talks _way_ too much."

Unfortunately, Meg seems to have a little fight left in her yet. She stumbles to a semi-standing position and launches herself at the door, not even flinching as she slams her head into the doorframe due to lack of eyesight. Dean figures demons must have some kind of ESP thing going on; otherwise she wouldn't be able to see at all.

Adam is the first to charge after her. Ordinarily, Dean would chide the kid for being so wreckless, but… hell, what's the worst that could happen? The kid's like Wolverine, just without the awesome claws and slightly gayer.

It's not even a minute later than Dean learns the answer to his question, as he and Sam follow Adam and Meg up a flight of stairs and into a janitor's closet. Meg manages to _smash_ the pan off of her face and _Jesus Christ_ is it nasty-looking under there. Fortunately, (or rather, unfortunately) Dean doesn't have to look at it for too long as Meg promptly grabs hold of Adam and is fixed right up.

"Son of a_ bitch_," Dean shouts as Meg maneuvers Adam into a chokehold and positions him as a human shield.

"No more games, boys. You think baby brother is invincible? How about we find out just how invincible he _really_ is?" Adam struggles against her uselessly as she reaches into a toolbox to pull out… _the fucking Magic Knife_.

"No," Sam breathes, but Meg just smirks at him.

"Say goodnight!" she smiles, and jams the knife upwards through Adam's chin and into his skull.

"**NO**," Dean shouts, but it's too late. Adam goes limp, his eyes becoming horribly vacant as smoke rises from where the knife entered. Meg contemptuously tosses him aside, and he flops over twice before lying utterly still.

He is going to kill her. **So hard**.

_To Be Continued…_


	4. Circle of Life

**Title:** Shiny Happy People [4/4]  
**Author: morkhan**  
**Warnings:** Cursing, snark, violence, both sides of the Winchester asskicking coin, kinkiness.  
**Characters:** Dean, Sam, Adam, Meg, OCs.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word Count:** 5547  
**Summary: ** The brothers face Meg for the final time. Things get physical.  
**Disclaimer**: Characters, universe, and recognizable things belong to CW and EK. The ridiculous plot is, sadly, mine.

**Author's Notes: **It's over! I spent several days doing almost nothing but writing this, so I sincerely hope you guys enjoyed the ride. Now that it's finished, I really must concentrate on school for a bit, but as soon as things calm down again, I'm sure I will find a few moments to dedicate to writing and keeping you lot entertained. The Season 6 premiere is less than a month away! Keep your fingers crossed…

Reviews are like love and cookies and cocaine to me. I can never have enough.

* * *

It's all backwards.

Usually, Dean is the one blindly charging ahead, devil-may-care attitude and all, making shit up as he goes along because as far as he's concerned, flying by the seat of your pants is the only way **to** fly. Sam is his counterbalance—the careful, measured, take-it-slow type who wants a plan for everything and a plan B for every plan A. That's the way the story usually goes.

_Usually_.

Now, however, it's different. Now, as Dean stands in front of Meg, trying to figure out the best way to disable her, get to that knife, and insert Tab A into Bitch B, any and all plans he is making are thrust aside by a six foot semi-truck made of pure Winchester fury; Sam _roars_ as he shoulder-charges Meg in one of the fastest sprints Dean has ever seen from his little brother. Not even super strength or whatever mojo she has going on can save that bitch from the full fury of Sam Winchester—there is a bone-crunching impact as the massive man slams into Meg's meatsuit and keeps going, his momentun carrying the both of them to and then _**through**_ the wall in the back of the closet, which lands them in the bedroom that Sam and Dean were supposed to stay in when they first got here. For a few seconds, Dean is literally incapable of doing anything but watching as the enormous Sam picks up the relatively small body Meg is hiding in and slams it into every surface in the room save the ceiling. He shatters a headboard to one of the beds, cleans off the top of a dresser, knocks over and breaks an expensive-looking armoire _in half_, all with Meg as his weapon of choice. The last time Dean saw Sam this honest-to-God, out-of-control furious was… well, when he was on the receiving end of the beatdown. And this time Sam isn't even on demon blood.

He _better_ not be on demon blood.

After finally shaking himself back into action, he realizes that what Sam is doing will ultimately be useless if he doesn't follow it up with something a little more concrete. Looking down at Adam, Dean feels his entire chest shrivel at how still he is. Even when Meg snapped his goddamn neck like a twig, he was twitching and moving his face as he fell. Now, he's not moving anything; just lying there, slack-faced, with a goddamn knife speared through his skull from bottom-to-top, a puddle of blood casually creeping outwards from his head. There's no time to mourn. There's never any time to mourn, but Dean is tired of losing people. He is especially tired of losing the same people, over and over and over again. He feels like a goddamn animal, being teased with bits of food on a string only to chase after it and have it yanked away. And then he finally catches it, and it's rubber. Or poisoned. And he realizes that the only one who got anything out of this sick little game was the one pulling the strings.

Whatever. There's **no time to mourn**. Not when there is still business to be taken care of.

So he ignores the rising pressure in his throat as he kneels next to Adam's body, grabs the knife handle and yanks it free (having to yank it at least three times to get it to budge, making Adam's head flop uselessly and bleed even more onto the hardwood). The blade is still wreathed in tiny ribbons of smoke. With his free hand, Dean lets the proverbial dam break just a little bit, reaching down and gently ruffling his baby brother's hair.

"We've got this one, kid. Don't worry."

And then it's back to the fight. Meg finally wriggles free of Sam's colossal grip, and Dean can see that the fury is starting to take its toll on him. Sam is covered in sweat and breathing like his lungs are filled with paper. He sees Dean with the knife, and the two of them come to a silent understanding; they'll be doing this one Ruby-style.

"Wow, boys," Meg sneers. "I didn't know you cared so—"

Dean has had _so much more than enough_ of this bitch's mouth. He reaches for the nearest object, a piece of the broken armoire, and hurls it at Meg like a spear. The impact doesn't look like it hurts much, but it stops her from talking and gives Sam an opportunity to tackle her again. Dean charges in behind him, and sure enough, there is enough fire left in Sammy to enable him to arm-lock Meg. The knife is warm in Dean's hand as jabs, but Meg sees what's coming and moves with unreal speed, breaking Sam's arm-lock (along with his arm) and bringing his hand forward to intercept the knife. Dean is too far into the thrust to stop it, and the knife spears right through Sam's palm, stopping well before it reaches the Hellbitch. With casual ease, she flips Sam over her shoulder and hurls him at Dean, sending them both sprawling.

"It's _rude_ to **interrupt**," she says. "Now, as I was saying, I didn't know you cared so much about John's dirty little secret. It took you so long to get around to finding him that I was seriously considering just stuffing the little shit into a cement mixer and hunting you down myself. You let him get angel-napped, you drag him into Hell, and then you get all _precious_ about it when I finally put the poor bastard out of his misery. You should be happy! I've given you another reason to mope and be angsty with each other, your favorite pastimes! Alas, poor little Baby Winchester, cut down in the prime of his—"

"Don't call me that."

There is no stopping Dean's grin. And there is, apparently, no stopping his baby brother. Adam is covered, at this point, in more blood than any human being should be able to lose and still stand, but his Wolverine powers have seen him through once again, and he stands ready, shoulders squared, head held high in the hole Sam made upon his entrance.

"Dude, we thought you were _dead!_" Sam says, shock and relief radiating from him in nearly-tangible waves.

Adam looks sheepish. "Actually… I'm pretty sure I _was_ dead. At least until you pulled the knife out."

"Oh yeah. Thanks for the reminder." Dean yanks the knife rather rudely out of Sam's hand, ignoring his yelp of protest as Adam gives them both a pat on the forehead. Good as new, and now they're armed to boot. "Great timing, buddy. I was just about to call for a Medic."

"That feels _awesome_," Sam sighs with a semi-dopey grin on his face as he stands up, no longer able to see through his own palm.

Adam grins back. "You know, that's what everybody has been telli—"

"Oh, that is **it**." Meg is now breathing like a bull on the verge of a full-speed charge. "I'm done. This isn't even **funny** anymore." She thrusts a savage finger at Dean. "You, I am decapitating." At Sam. "You, I'm snapping in half. No more games. No more torture." Then she turns to Adam. "And finally, since the stupid knife apparently doesn't work as well on _Angel Turds _as it does demons… You, I am locking in a safe and dropping in the ocean as soon as I deal with these two. But first, I'm going to nail you to the wall so you can't **annoy** me," she snarls.

Adam looks at her with half-lidded, thoughtful eyes as she rants. When she finishes, he looks at Sam and Dean, seeming a little uneasy, before turning back to Meg and smirking. "Oh, someone here's about to get nailed, but it's not me…"

Meg just looks at him like he turned into a purple octo-horse. Dean's not quite sure what he means either, but he doesn't have time to ask.

"…and by the way? The name's _**MILLIGAN**__!_" Adam shouts as he immediately charges towards Meg, slamming into her at just the right trajectory to send them both soaring out the window—the same window Adam once climbed through to make his escape. Now, he is even _less _sure of what the kid is planning, but the last thing they need is to sit around pondering it.

"Come on, Sammy," he says as he drags his little brother to his feet, down the stairs, around the outside of the house to where Adam and Meg—

**WHAT.**

**THE. **

**FUCK.**

* * *

It's kind of a stupid idea.

Okay, it's a _very_ stupid idea. But from what he's been able to gather, the knife she used to give him an impromptu tracheotomy is supposed to be some kind of magic knife. Sam and Dean have it, and now all they need is the opportunity to put it in Meg. And it's the weirdest thing, but it's _Sam_ who finally cements the thought in his head; everybody says that it feels so good when he touches them… well…

Since beating her up doesn't seem to be helping, why not go in the opposite direction?

So Adam charges and tackles Meg and knocks them both through the window. The glass shards cut into their skin and the landing knocks them for a loop, but through it all, Adam never lets go of Meg, letting a constant current of healing juice run through her. One look at her face as Adam's magic fingers touch her skin tells him pretty much everything he needs to know. Oh God, this is going to be **so** gross…

With a savage snarl, Adam closes his eyes and **smashes** their faces together. Meg reciprocates with equal enthusiasm, which just seems to up the ante—_the strength of the energy current increases in direct proportion to the amount of skin-to-skin contact_, Adam notes with clinical detachment in an effort to keep from barfing all over her, which he is fairly sure will break the moment. That little observation explains why the psycho from Hell promptly tears what's left of his shirt off and practically impales him on her super-sharp bitch fingernails. The little twinge of pain causes his frustration to boil over as he spitefully bites the _shit_ out of her lip, but fuck if the kinky bitch doesn't _like_ that; she just moans and digs in deeper, rolling over on top of him and slamming his head into the dirt with her own. Well, fine, if that's the way she wants to play, he's got plenty of frustration he's just _dying_ to work out on a deserving target. Summoning all the rage at this sneaky, lying slut for stalking him, using him, using _all_ of them to carry out some stupid vendetta against his brothers, he turns outright savage as he lifts himself off the ground, Meg and all, and slams her as hard as humanly possible into a tree trunk.

"Oh, _YEAH_," she growls, still trying to swallow him whole. "Hurts so **good!** Come on, baby, make it _**hurt so good**_…"

This just pisses him off even more, and now he's grinding her against the tree like he's trying to smooth it out with her ass as sandpaper. Meg is ecstatic, and the overflow of energy inspires her to take charge again as she suddenly whips him around as has **him** pressed against the tree.

"**Oh, **_**FUCK**_! Little Winchester likes it _**rough**_, doesn't he?" she says, her voice husky as she practically presses him into the tree hard enough to leave an Adam-shaped imprint in the wood.

He opens his eyes to look at her, never breaking the contact. "Oh, you _like_ that?" he asks, low and dangerous, digging his fingers into her back.

She groans in reply, closing her eyes taking a bite of his neck.

"Then I've got one question for you," Adam says. He grabs her by the hair and jerks her up to stare into her eyes, which have gone completely black with lust.

"_What_?" she sneers.

Adam grins. "How do you feel about anal?"

Meg has less than a second to be confused by that before Dean promptly shoves the knife up her ass.

Well, into the base of her spine, anyway. Close enough.

* * *

In and out, in and out, over and over and over and over. He stabs her again and again and again and again and again, reveling in the sound of sliced flesh, the smoke of cooked tissue, the dull orange glow that accompanies demon death. Her meatsuit illuminates from within, the Halloweenish spectacle of orange light around a black skeleton appearing through her pale skin with each thrust. Meg gasps and twitches—Dean wants to hear her _scream_, wants her to suffer, to beg for mercy for all of the pain and misery she has caused, but more than all of that, he just wants her **gone**. So he will keep on stabbing. He will stab her until she stops moving, or his arm falls off, and if the latter happens… well, he's got two arms for a reason, y'know.

Eventually, the death throes subside and the death glow dims to nothing and Meg's last desperate gasps at life are replaced with a steady chanting that is oddly monotone.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Stop that. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Stop. Ow. She's gone. Ow. Ow…"

"Dean," Sam says, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder and finally bringing him out of his bitch-shanking trance. "Meg's toast. You can stop now."

Dean looks up at Meg, who blinks at him owlishly. "But she's still moving."

"That's not Meg, Dean. That's who she was wearing," Sam clarifies.

Adam looks at him with worried eyes. It's at that point that Dean notices that Adam never let go of the meatsuit, which explains why none of the wounds Dean left were persistent (eventually, hacking into someone starts to make different noises as the skin is peeled away and you start hitting muscle tissue and bone). "Oh," Dean says, slowly lowering the knife and looking at the girl he just spent a few minutes filleting. "Sorry. Got a little… carried away there."

The girl looks at him, her expression not condemning and… well, not much of anything, really. "Your outrage is completely justified," she says, still talking in kind of an odd, flat tone that makes her sound semi-robotic. "She deserved to die several million deaths. Thank you for being so thorough in her extermination."

"Stephanie?" Adam asks, finally seeming to realize that he has her in a death grip and releasing her.

She, in turn, backs away from the tree, allowing Adam to slide down his trunk. "Indeed, that is my name. I would imagine that using my name along with my identification and social security made it significantly easier for this 'Meg' to navigate the labyrinthine legalities necessary to establish an organization such as this. Though, I must say, I am somewhat surprised that she chose to file this cult as an official religious organization. She did not seem like one who held respect for the law." Yeah. She definitely sounds like a robot. Wait, no—she sounds like _Cas_.

Adam is looking at her with wide, slightly frightened eyes. "You're… uhhh… _different_."

She nods at him, her expression not changing in the slightest. "I am. I believe Meg's personal interpretation of the so-called 'Valley Girl' persona was adopted as an intentional affront to my intellectual sensibilities."

Dean looks over to Sam, who seems just as weirded-out about this whole thing as he is. "Uhhh, yeah, that sounds like Meg…" Dean offers.

Stephanie turns her head towards him and just… blinks. Some more.

"But you're alright?" Adam asks.

Stephanie turns back to him. "Yes, I am in extremely good health. I may, in fact, be in better condition than when I was when initially spiritually co-opted. We should try having enthusiastic, athletic sex at some point to see if you are indeed capable of improving one's physical condition in addition to restoring it."

Adam's jaw drops and his eyes become Elijah Wood huge. "Wait, _what_?"

Stephanie shrugs; it's the first actual sign of emotion of any sort that Dean has seen from her, and it looks **weird**. "You are an unfathomably fascinating specimen, Adam Milligan. You have the potential to revolutionize modern medicine and your very existence demolishes the laws of science, physics, and biology as I know them. I would like to study you further. But first…" she trails off, suddenly turning around and walking towards the cabin. "…I need a fuckin' **drink**."

She leaves the sons of John Winchester standing in baffled silence.

"Adam," Sam says. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think dispossessing her has just made her _worse_."

Adam gives a miserable groan and leans against the tree, beating the back of his head against it in a steady rhythm.

Dean can only smirk as he looks at the kid. He's half-naked, looking like he got in a fight with a combine harvester and lost, _big time_, but still standing. At the end of the day, somehow, they're still standing.

"What?" Adam says.

The eldest Winchester just shrugs. "Nothing. Just… you look kind of badass."

The kid looks surprised for a second, but he quickly sweeps the shock away in favor of a semi-decent pass at nonchalance. "Yeah, so? I _am_ kind of badass. What of it?"

It's too fucking funny. This kid is _so_ his little brother. Dean just shakes his head and laughs.

Sam, on the other hand, has his camera phone aimed at the youngest Winchester.

"Dude!" Adam shouts, trying in vain to hold his hands up to block the shot, but Sam has already snapped him.

"Don't worry," Sam says as he pockets the phone. "Just… a little picture for posterity. If I ever need a reminder that we're related, that should erase any doubts."

Adam crosses his arms, looking disgusted. "Yeah, I'll _bet_ that's what it's for." He stomps off back towards the cabin.

"Where're you going?" Dean asks.

"To put some **clothes **on!" Adam shouts without looking back. "_Fuckin' perverts…_" Dean hears him mumble before turning the corner.

The two Winchesters-by-name are then left alone in the silence. Dean raises his eyebrows at Sam. "Well, that was…"

"Profoundly fucked up?" Sam offers.

Dean nods. "Yeah, that works. Man, what the fuck was up with him getting all handsy with that Hell-whore?"

The tallest Winchester shrugs. "I guess it was supposed to be a distraction. It worked, didn't it?"

Dean shakes his head as the two of them start back towards the cabin. "Yeah, I guess it's just… man, it's a little too weird, y'know? I'm guessing he gets the whole 'has sex with monsters' thing from you."

If you could cram any more annoyance into Sam's eyes, they'd probably pop out of his head just to smack you. "He doesn't 'get' **anything** from me. He's my _brother_, Dean, not my kid."

"I know, I'm just sayin'—" Dean suddenly grinds to a halt, stopping Sam with an oustretched hand so the two of them can witness the majestic sight in front of them. A magnificent, enormous buck, with antlers any hunter would be proud to hang on his wall, strides nobly across the campsite, impervious to all obstacles. Stuck on one of its antlers is a squirming, spitting, snarling, Satanic cultist uttering epithets too foul for Dean to repeat. His struggles, mighty as they are, do not impair the progress of the buck in the slightest, not even causing its head to twitch as it gracefully enters the woods.

Sam looks at Dean. Dean looks at Sam. The two of them last about five seconds before they both fall over, having lost all muscle control from the sheer force of their guffawing.

Several minutes pass before they can get up again

* * *

Afterwards, Adam goes through and insta-heals every sickie still in the camp, sending them all on their way and begging them _not _to spread his gospel. The remaining demons get the same treatment as Stephanie, with Adam preserving the meat while Dean and Sam apply the heat.

Stephanie, fortunately, remembers exactly where Meg parked the car.

"She had no desire to damage or deface it, oddly enough. I believe she intended to use it to drag you along the highway after you were killed. Or possibly before."

Dean puts that vomit-inducing thought out of his head so he can concentrate on his car. "Oh, God, baby…" he whispers. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry that those bad men got inside you. I promise, I'll never let it happen again. You'll be safe with me. Shhhh…" He is hugging the car, gently running his hands across the finish. He can feel her distress, even if the others are looking at him like he took a leap off the high dive and hit every board on his way down. She was so scared. So alone. So… _defiled_. "We'll give you a washing like you won't believe. Hand-rubbed, every inch, washed, waxed and shined. We'll even get you some new upholstery if that's what it takes to fix things between us. Just please… please don't be mad at me…"

The silence that follows is awkward for everyone but Dean, but she doesn't hold it against him. He knows. He _knew_ he could count on his baby to take him back. "So forgiving…" he sighs, and Sam finally steps in to take over the conversation.

"Thanks for taking us to the car, Stephanie, she means… a _**lot**_ to the family," he says with a gentle smile.

Stephanie turns her strange owl-eyes towards him. "You are welcome. Oh, and I should thank you for saving my life." She looks at him thoughtfully for a few seconds. "Thank you for saving my life," she finishes.

"No problem," Sam says.

"Hey, guys?" Adam says, stepping forward from the crowd of gathered cultists, dressed once again in people-clothes. "Can I, uhhh… can you take me for a ride in her?" he asks sheepishly. "You know, for old time's sake."

Dean gives a million-dollar smile. "Hop in," he says, and Adam returns his grin.

Sam gives a little wave to the gathered cultists before they vanish in a cloud of dust and burnt rubber.

* * *

Stephanie watches them passively as they leave.

After a few minutes, a voice from the crowd speaks up. "They're not coming back, are they?"

"Nope," Stephanie says.

"So now what do we do?" another voice asks.

The woman turns to address them directly. "We track him down."

"How?"

"There will be signs. Portents. Omens. Everywhere he goes, they will follow, and so will we. The world must know the Gospel of Adam and the Winchesters," she says simply. "But for now… we rest. Meg was terrible with her paperwork, and there are great deals of administrative duties I must attend to. Sleep well, everyone, for tomorrow… the hunt begins." She dismisses them with a smile.

She fully intends to complete the aforementioned paperwork, but not right away. First, she _really_ must get in touch with one of her old friends to let her know she is alright. And, of course, to talk about what happened. It might sound crazy to most people, but Stephanie has a feeling that her old friend will appreciate the story even if she doesn't believe it. The plot is remarkably similar to a truly _awful_ book she once tried to make Stephanie read.

Now, what was Becky's number?

* * *

There are no tearful goodbyes. No heartfelt reconciliations or warm words of brotherhood. They're Winchesters, and they don't _do_ that kind of shit. Dean simply wakes up one morning, finds a note that says '_Thanks_,' and does not find Adam or any of his things. He didn't really expect the kid to stick around forever, but…

"I don't know, Sammy," he says as they head down the road. "I kind of thought we were… fuck, _bonding_ or whatever."

Sam is playing a game on his cell phone, but he nods to show Dean he is paying attention (or at least to stop Dean from bothering him about it).

"I just wish I knew where he went, y'know?" Dean _does not_ sigh, because wistful sighing is for teenage girls.

Sam grins without ever looking up from his game. "Check your contact list."

Dean gives him the fish-eye before fishing his phone out of his jacket and flipping it open. His numbers list is arranged alphabetically. 'Adam' is now at the top. It wasn't before. "Huh," Dean says, and presses 'Call.'

"Put it on speaker," Sam says, still engrossed in his virtual world. Dean activates the speakerphone and puts it in the little holster Sam installed.

"_What the fuck? Where did this phone come from?_"

"Slipped it into your stuff before you left," Sam smiles, before immediately frowning again and slamming his phone shut, as apparently the conversation caused him to die. Well, not 'die' but… you know.

"_Gee_, _thanks,"_ Adam's voice is loaded with sarcasm. Dean can picture his longsuffering little face even now. "_Any other goodies I should know about?_"

"Yeah, there's about five thousand dollars in cash in the side pocket above where you pack your toothbrush," Sam replies.

Dean and Adam respond in unison. "_**WHAT?**_"

Sam just shrugs. "I figured Adam could use a little help starting out."

Dean gapes. "So you gave him five thousand dollars of **our money?**"

Sam's sarcastic bitchface speaks volumes. "Funny, how you refer to it as 'our money…'"

Dean tilts his head in thought for a bit, before silently conceding the point.

"_Look, guys, I… seriously, thanks for your help, but I just don't think driving around the country, hunting monsters is my bag of chips, okay?_"

"Adam, it's okay. We don't want you to go down that road if that's not what you want," Dean finally picks up the conversation.

"We just figured it'd be good to give you a way to get in touch with us if you ever need anything. There are other numbers in there, too, if you can't get in touch with us. Bobby's a great guy. Missouri is kind of a handful, but she usually knows what she's talking about."

Dean grins at Sam. "You thoughtful little _bitch_."

"_Oh, wow, uhhh… thanks._"

"So where you heading, kid?" Dean asks.

"_Pffffft, like I'm telling you_."

"Aw, come on. Not even a hint?" Dean prods.

"_Somewhere where there's a shit-ton of sick people, how about that?_" Adam replies.

Dean shrugs, knowing that's probably all they'll get out of him. "Fair enough. I just wanted to check up on you, man. We're family, we look out for each other, capisce?"

"_Capisco_."

"What?" Dean asks. Sam snorts, of course, which just makes him feel like the idiot of the family.

"_Nothing_," Adam replies, and it sounds like he's grinning too.

"Hey, I don't know how much it'll actually mean to you, but me and Sam, we were proud of you back there. You kicked ass, man," Dean says.

"…_well, __**duh**_**.**" Smug little shit.

Sam leans forward, like he's making sure his voice is nice and clear to the other end. "Dad would've been proud of you, too."

Adam is silent for a few seconds. "…_thanks_." He sounds a little rough on the other end, and Dean scoffs at this unrepentant display of emotion.

"Alright, it's getting a little too Lifetime Original Movie in here for my blood," Dean says. "Adios, little bro."

"Call if you need anything. And send us an email sometime."

"_Yeah, whatever. Later,_" Adam says, and the call ends.

"He totally loves us," Dean smirks.

Sam on the other hand, is staring off into space, lost in thought.

"Something on your mind, sasquatch?"

Sam keeps thinking for a few seconds, before cracking another of those _way-too-devilish_ grins of his. "I think I know where Adam is going."

Dean gives him a sidelong glance. "And? What's so funny about it?"

Sam reclines in his seat, pulling out his game phone again. "Let's just say that… if I'm right… Adam probably didn't think this through nearly as much as he should have."

Dean raises his eyebrows at that, but Sam won't give him any more answers outside of that Special Satan Grin.

Little brothers. Sheesh.

* * *

He… really should have spent more time thinking this through.

It seemed like a good idea at first, but then again, what _doesn't_? He gets away from his brothers, disaster magnets that they are, he gets away from his creepy stalker cult, he goes and helps those who need it. If only it were that uncomplicated.

He probably would've been better off if he had followed the little boy who tried to wake him up last night. Of course, being that he didn't really speak the local language, he'd only woken up long enough to ensure that nothing was on fire before bedding down again try and sleep off the jetlag. He figured something was wrong as soon as he woke up and found the tiny motel completely deserted save for himself, but he wasn't quite expecting…

…_this_.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, an African choir is chanting in Swahili against a gorgeous Savannah sunrise. In the parking lot below him, there stands a delegation of gazelles, meerkats, elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, monkeys, warthogs, zebras, cheetahs, hyenas, wildebeests, cranes (with assorted other birds) along with several groups of animals that he can't even fucking _name_, in a massive herd that stretches far beyond the morning sun's light. They're all just standing around peacefully, staring up at him like Mufasa died and declared him the freakin' Lion King and they're just waiting on their cue to bow. Any second now, a baboon is going to sneak up behind him and lift him up into the air to be praised. He just _knows_ it.

Whatever.

He's gone through worse than this. He's been to Hell and back—literally—and it's gonna take more than the freakin' Animal Kingdom following him around like he's Edward fucking Cullen and they're a bunch of teen girls. Nothing will dissuade him from his mission. As he gazes down at the crowd, he hears a voice that sounds suspiciously like John Winchester.

"_Remember… who you are…_"

He does.

So he squares his shoulders, puffs out his chest, and walks down the stairs into the Wild, Wild World. As he reaches the bottom, a shaggy-maned lion gives him a long stare.

"The fuck are you lookin' at?" Adam challenges, jutting out his chin.

The lion yawns and looks away.

"Yeah, thought so."

And so Adam Milligan wades through a huge, _stinking_ crowd of animals, navigating a veritable minefield of poops of all shapes, sizes and consistencies, vowing to walk this road 'til he finds his place on the path unwinding... and to help as many people as he can along the way.

After about an hour of this, he wonders if the elephants will let him ride on their backs.

* * *

**From:** Adam Milligan  
**Sent:** Friday, September 24, 2010 3:34 PM  
**To:** Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester.  
**Subject:** Storytime.

_Hey, since you guys made me skip over the best part of the story, I figured I could send you the rest. Yes, I'm fine, and no, I'm still not telling you where I am._

_So Adam escaped his freakish fuckin' family circus and dove into the arms of the angels, but he definitely did not find some comfort there. He found only pain and betrayal and lots and lots of blood from the mouth, and __**fuck**__ if he wasn't wrong about absolutely fuckin' everything: the fucking angels were lying, fucking Dean __**was**__ supposed to save the world, and he was just a fucking carrot to put on the end of Dean's stick. He wanted to be saved, because, hey, torture is only fun on one end of the equation, but he also kind of wished Dean and Sam would forget about him just so that smug, fat, bald piece of ass fluff Zachariah would have nothing to show for all his douchebaggery._

_But they come anyway. These two guys who have known him for all of like six hours risk their fucking lives against __**goddamn angels**__ to come in and save an ungrateful bastard who doesn't even__** like**__ them. Dean __**stabs an angel through the face**__ and the angel _**EXPLODES**_ and there is really no way to do justice on paper to just how incredibly motherfucking duckchucking cowtrucking chickenclucking _**AWESOME**_ it is. At that moment, Adam knew, without a doubt, that he had the coolest and most badass fucking brothers on the face of God's earth and that whatever happened, they'd have his back._

'_course, then he got trapped in the stupid room and let's not get into Michael's enhanced interrogation techniques. He got possessed by an archangel—which is pretty much the same as being __**fucked by a supernova**__—and dragged into Hell and all that stuff but… maybe in the grand scheme of things, all that stuff isn't important._

_All's well that ends well, right?_

**THE END**


End file.
